Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site uwmacc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois From: dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Integrated Circuits. Part I. Message-ID: <501@uwmacc.UUCP> Date: Fri, 30-Nov-84 15:27:56 EST Article-I.D.: uwmacc.501 Posted: Fri Nov 30 15:27:56 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 2-Dec-84 04:12:00 EST Distribution: net Organization: UW-Madison Primate Center Lines: 112 > > [Ray Miller] > > Evolutionists believe that these amazingly intricate living sys- > > tems developed solely through time, chance, and natural processes. > > Creationists, on the other hand, believe the design and organization > > found in living organisms could only result from the acts of an intel- > > ligent Creator. What scientific evidence leads the creationist to > > this conclusion?..[Ray then proceeds to amaze us with the complexity > > of life] > > [Bill Jefferys] > This is just the old "Argument from Design" -- "Look, how wonderful and > complex life is, it must have had a Designer. Such things just could > not have come about in any other way". The argument from design > has been completely discredited, and is not taken seriously by anyone > but Creationists anymore. It is bad theology and even worse science. (i) The age of an argument has nothing to do with its validity. (ii) Perhaps Bill is right about the status of the argument for design (completely discredited). But the basis on which it is declared to be so is certainly specious. For the most part, the statements above are simply a form of appeal to authority, though Bill does attempt to bolster his point a bit with some additional comments (which I have discussed in an accompanying posting). The number of people holding a point of view, and the credentials of those people are irrelevant to the validity of the argument. Even if appeals to authority or majority opinion were a valid basis for making a point, it may be observed that one group of people which consistently *rejects* such appeals is the group of evolutionary contributors to this newsgroup. More specifically, one particular member of that group is a Mr. Bill Jefferys. It may be objected that I am attempting to establish a case of guilt by association. This is not so. Some time back, Ray Miller submitted an article dealing with the academic credentials of certain well- known creationists. Bill submitted the following response: > [article 596@utastro] > How impressed Ray is with academic degrees! Unfortunately, possession > of a Ph.D. does not necessarily mean that what one says can be believed, > even when speaking on your own or a related field. In other words, academic degrees (a form of scholarly authority) count for very little. I certainly agree with Bill here. An argument should be judged on its own merits. It was therefore a disappointment to find him arguing against himself. But one simply cannot expect to reject arguments made on the basis of authority and then turn around and use the same basis for one's own argument. I am not trying to make a scapegoat of Bill Jefferys. A broader point needs to be made, especially in light of a recent trend in this newsgroup, the tendency to append to one's argument one's qualifications to make that argument. This seems to be true particularly of some of our newer contributors. A B.S. in biology, senior status in biology and a degree in biostatistics are three examples that come to mind. I have no wish to be contemptuous of these achievements. But an argument is no better, or worse, as a result of stated qualifications. It stands or falls independently of the poster's credentials, and may (i.e., *will*) so be judged. For concreteness, I will give an example, using myself as the party in error. An article was posted containing the following: > > I think the concept that everyone is trying to get at here is this: > > > > If an event has a probability of occuring that is greater than zero, > > and there are an infinite number of attempts at it, then the probability > > that it will eventually occur is indeed 1, no matter how small the > > probability that it will happen on a given attempt. The only assumption > > needed here is that time goes on forever (and I'm not going to debate > > that here, I take that as a given). I replied: > This argument is an example of the gambler's fallacy: if I lose > *this* time, then it's more likely I'll win *next* time. The outcome > of event i does not affect the outcome of event j in any way, for > independent events. (If the events are not independent, then the > above argument doesn't apply anyway.) My response prompted a number of replies stating (correctly) that I had misinterpreted the argument and that my own argument therefore was invalid. (there were other problems in the argument to which I was responding, but what I said was one of them, wasn't.) One person went so far as to imply that he was qualified to point this out by virtue of master's in biostatistics. Now what can be the point of this? Certainly in such an action inheres no power to convince me of the correctness of the argument. I had already seen the error, even before any of the replies hit the newsgroup, since one reader did me the courtesy of a mail message pointing it out. Even if I had not realized my error, a degree waved in my face is not going to increase my understading, is it? It's not that I mind being wrong and having it pointed out. How could I mind that? After all, I'm a creationist! :-) I've been wrong in this group before, and no doubt will be several times in the future, and I expect to see my errors pointed out. But, like Bill, I fail to be impressed when someone tosses a degree at me. The qualifications may as well not be posted, unless they are simply given for the purpose of sharing a bit of personal information or background (which is fine by me; I think, however, that such has not been the case). The last point I would like to make is that these comments apply equally well to myself and other creationists. If I try to make an argument such as those I have discussed above, I fully expect someone to point it out. -- Paul DuBois {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois