{"id":88044,"date":"2020-09-12T23:31:53","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T05:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=88044"},"modified":"2020-09-16T09:57:33","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T15:57:33","slug":"the-design-inference-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/09\/the-design-inference-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Design Inference\u201d (Part 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Dembski<\/a>
A photograph of Dr. William A. Dembski during a lecture at the University of California at Berkeley in March of 2006.
(A public domain photograph taken by Photograph by Wesley R. Elsberry, at en.Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Continued<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to William Dembski, design can be detected or inferred by using what he terms an \u201cexplanatory filter.\u201d\u00a0 This \u201cfilter\u201d checks for signs of contingency,<\/strong> complexity<\/strong>, and specificity<\/strong>, while filtering out the background noise of mere chance and necessity.\u00a0 If an event or an object exhibits all three of the enumerated factors \u2014 contingency, complexity, and specificity \u2014 it can be identified as the result of an intelligent cause (as contrasted with a nonintelligent material cause).\u00a0 Each of the three factors is necessary to indicate design, but none is, by itself, sufficient.\u00a0 All three must be present.\u00a0 If all three factors are present, however, their presence is both a necessary indicator of design and a sufficient one.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But what do these terms mean?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Dembski, an event or an object is to be considered contingent<\/strong> if it cannot be explained as the result of natural law \u2014 that is, if it cannot be accounted for by automatic processes.\u00a0 As an example, he offers a crystal of salt.\u00a0 Salt crystals can be fully explained on the basis of chemical processes that function according to chemical laws.\u00a0 Thus, they are not to be considered contingent in his sense of the term.\u00a0 By contrast, a complex table setting of silverware cannot be explained on the basis of natural laws and automatic function.\u00a0 So, instinctively and naturally, when we see such a table setting we immediately recognize that it was laid out by an intelligent agent (e.g., by the butler, or by virtually anybody who knows more about table settings than I<\/em> have yet managed to master).\u00a0 Of course, natural laws act<\/em> on contingent events and contingent objects \u2014 e.g., gravity affects place settings on a dining table, as well as outfielders throwing in to a catcher in the hope of putting out a runner approaching home plate, and heat causes the snowman that I\u2019ve built to melt and to droop \u2014 but natural laws do not and cannot exhaustively account<\/em> for them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Complexity<\/strong> is a function of probability.\u00a0 The greater its complexity, the less probable it is that a given event or object arose by chance \u2014 which is to say, without intelligent causation.\u00a0 But, as noted above, complexity alone is insufficient to establish the influence of an intelligent agent.\u00a0 As Dembski points out,<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Complexity by itself isn\u2019t enough to eliminate chance and indicated design.\u00a0 If I flip a coin 1,000 times, I\u2019ll participate in a highly complex (or what amounts to the same thing, highly improbable) event.\u00a0 Indeed, the sequence I end up flipping will be one in a trillion, trillion, trillion, . . . where the ellipsis needs twenty-two more \u201ctrillions.\u201d\u00a0 This sequence of coin tosses won\u2019t, however, trigger a design inference.\u00a0 Though complex, this sequence won\u2019t exhibit a suitable pattern to detect design.*<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thus, while both contingency and complexity are required<\/em> for the inference of design to kick in, neither contingency nor complexity nor even a combination of the two is sufficient to fully justify such an inference.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

*<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 See William Dembski, \u201cScience and Design,\u201d First Things<\/em> (1 October 1998).\u00a0 Also available at\u00a0https:\/\/www.discovery.org\/a\/62\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

To be continued.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Continued: \u00a0 According to William Dembski, design can be detected or inferred by using what he terms an \u201cexplanatory filter.\u201d\u00a0 This \u201cfilter\u201d checks for signs of contingency, complexity, and specificity, while filtering out the background noise of mere chance and necessity.\u00a0 If an event or an object exhibits all three of the enumerated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9409,14551,4135,16233,16236,10253,71,8307,16196,16193,16245,16239,10127,545,4619,677,123,16242,10130,16199],"class_list":["post-88044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-appearance-of-design","tag-complex","tag-complexity","tag-contingency","tag-contingent","tag-cosmic","tag-cosmology","tag-cosmos","tag-dembski","tag-design-inference","tag-event","tag-explanatory-filter","tag-fine-tuned","tag-fine-tuning","tag-id","tag-intelligence","tag-intelligent-design","tag-object","tag-universe","tag-william-dembski"],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cThe Design Inference\u201d (Part 2)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Continued:   According to William Dembski, design can be detected or inferred by using what he terms an 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