Responding to a Creationist complaint about criticism

On Facebook, I wrote a brief response to an article by Dembski that promised to demolish a criticism of the book. I might need to reuse this content, so here it is:

Well, I read the article that this article links to, and it is pretty funny. Apparently, Mr. Dembski's Theory relies upon improbability and what he calls "specification".

Since he is talking in theoretical terms only at this point, and not with reference to the data, we can only interpret what he means by in probability in terms of the arguments from improbability commonly made by creationists or, as he calls it, believers in intelligent design. These arguments generally fail due to a number of fallacies. The most fundamental such fallacy is the assumption that because a particular thing that happens is highly improbable, it could not have happened by chance. For example, if you deal out 52 cards into four Bridge hands, that particular configuration of cards in that particular order in those particular for hands is improbable. And yet, somehow, people manage to play bridge. The fallacy is obvious.

His specification argument is basically an example of the lakebed fallacy. It will be observed that the water in every lake exactly matches the shape of the lake bed. Every lake!!! How could this be? It could not have happened by chance! Clearly lakes are intelligently designed!!!

Finally, this article is a good example of the snooze fallacy. The author evidently thinks that he throws enough words on a page, we will fall asleep and accept the validity of his argument. This frees him from having to actually make the argument; he can simply promise to make the argument at some point in the future if we can stay awake long enough for that future to occur.

This may enable him to sell a few more books or even draw salary from a creationist institution, so I applaud him for having a business model. It's got to be easier than doing stand-up comedy.

Parking Strip Poppy

 

I did not expect much from planting the scrap of parking strip to the left of my drive, but once Brian and Melody converted their part to a nice garden, I felt inspired to follow suit ... in my own way.

I covered the grass in many layers of cardboard held down by the tree root Izzy had severed to put in the drive ... I figured it belonged in there somewhere ... and put down all the dirt I had. I put in a few random plants and a lot of leftover flower seed. Some of the plants did well, some poorly - I'm guessing maybe the sunflowers are pickier about their roots ... but these poppies are delightful!