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To: KMJames
Isn't that what Dembski is driving at in his work - some way of getting at or describing "eternal truths" mathematically, in his case regarding "design"?

One of the fundamental claims of the IDers is that it's possible to construct mathematical tests that distinguish between designed things and natural things. I haven't ever seen such a thing, but if someday somebody comes up with such a test, I'll be glad to consider it. But right now I have no reason to believe that such a test is possible. All I know is that Dembski, et al. want one, and that they expect it to tell them that organisms are designed and not natural.

342 posted on 04/19/2006 1:44:25 PM PDT by Physicist
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To: Physicist
...One of the fundamental claims of the IDers is that it's possible to construct mathematical tests that distinguish between designed things and natural things...

This, to me, is a very interesting subject, in that I make a living as a designer...perhaps the reason why I am interested in these crevo threads.

352 posted on 04/19/2006 2:05:07 PM PDT by KMJames
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To: Physicist; KMJames
One of the fundamental claims of the IDers is that it's possible to construct mathematical tests that distinguish between designed things and natural things. I haven't ever seen such a thing, but if someday somebody comes up with such a test, I'll be glad to consider it. But right now I have no reason to believe that such a test is possible. All I know is that Dembski, et al. want one, and that they expect it to tell them that organisms are designed and not natural.

Christians believe that the entire universe and everything in it is designed by God. No-one can show that this belief is false. It gives rise to the unfortunate consequence (for Dembski), however, that Dembski's marvellous "design filter" could never provide a false positive if he ever managed to construct such a filter. After all, everything is designed, so the design filter can never be wrong when it says of a particular object, "Yep, Design!". Spectacularly useless.

356 posted on 04/19/2006 2:22:27 PM PDT by Thatcherite (Miraculous explanations are just spasmodic omphalism)
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