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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