The Law of Parsimony Favors Intelligent Design - B

Probability of Life: "We can quibble about probability and the equations used", but that would be a debate. Better to simply reassert a "final analysis" that was refuted. While "the emergence of life from nonliving material is…highly improbable" might have been an understandable thing to say in Round 1, my immediate objections to the underlying methodology were never responded to, nor was http://arxiv.org... evidently even glanced at. And while I remain in agreement with Pro that "it is improbable for simple life forms to evolve into intelligent creatures" on a single habitable planet, his own figure (.01%) remains an insignificant hurdle for the billions of habitable planets in this universe alone. Despite the fact that such allegedly low probability was put forward as the reason I must accept either ID or the allegedly less parsimonious Multiverse, probability "really does not matter, because we are talking about parsimony"? "Intelligence", like unintelligence, "IS observed and IS a natural phenomenon". But, as Pro put it, "intelligent design posits one unobserved…entity", namely the intelligent designer. But it is not "Intelligence" that "eliminates the need for unobserved processes": an unintelligent entity with equal lack of definition would do just fine. Log Cabin "Analogy": Nowhere do I assume that "the only reason we should assume an intelligent designer is because we have seen beings capable of creating such things". Pro is the one who does not understand the concept of interdependent probabilities, and he's projecting that weakness onto me. Pro uses a sequential method of determining cause: first, see that unintelligent cause is "improbable" or infers more than 1 entity; second, "permit the idea of an intelligent designer" to avoid the scrutiny of the first step. Because I even inquire about evidence of design (as distinguished from defaulting to design), Pro worries that I'm scrutinizing the wrong hypothesis. First of all, if probabilities aren't equal, parsimony is inactive and "favors" nothing. Second, while unintelligent cause of a log cabin is in any case "highly improbable", it increases in likelihood upon observance of the log cabin. So does intelligent cause. Before we see the log cabin, it is "highly improbable" that there is a log cabin of any kind: most spots, there is no log cabin, neither built nor fallen into place. So what happens to our probabilities when we become sure there is a log cabin there? As there is no other choice but "intelligent" and "unintelligent", our probabilities must ultimately sum to 1, but what distribution? It should seem a silly question: obviously, each probability should increase in proportion to its initial size. But Pro prefers to effectively give ALL of the new probability to intelligent design, both in the log cabin "analogy" and in the more important case of life, in which the probability of unintelligent cause—while initially quite low (but still higher than the probability of intelligent cause, which Pro has provided only an argument from ignorance for)—becomes massive after the fact of life. Multiverse: If a theory must be "empirically testable" or else "parsimony is a moot point", Pro should have provided an empirical test of ID. If the apparent failure of existing theories is enough to lead one to default to ID, why shouldn't it be enough to lead one to default to Multiverse? On the other hand, Multiverse is empirically testable. For example, the WMAP cold spot (http://space.newscientist.com...) lends credence to it. While there is no apparent reason for God to have put a giant hole in the universe, the observation is entirely consistent with quantum entanglement of universes. Actual Infinities: Pro has said: A."Actual infinites cannot exist", and B."Everything that begins to exist has a cause". But how can A be true if B is true? B allows for only two possibilities for ultimate cause: an infinite causal regression or a cause that's itself infinite (by virtue of having no beginning). In the Grand Hotel paradox, the proprietor shifts "on to infinity": first, for all x is a member of N (the particular infinite number of rooms), he shifts x to x+1. Later, he shifts x to 2x. But what makes Craig think this would be any more possible for a non-circular infinite set than it would be for a non-circular finite set? The guest in room #N will have nowhere to go, there being no room numbered higher; and yet he'll be joined by the guest from the room to his left. Later, the guests in all rooms to the right of room#N/2 (half of all rooms) will have nowhere to go, N/2*2 being the largest multiple of 2 in the hotel. And yet guests from rooms numbered N/2 or less will distribute themselves evenly among all evens, thus making the number of twice occupied rooms equal to the number of unoccupied ones: N/4. In each case, the proprietor of the Grand Hotel has done nothing more spectacular than what the proprietor of any finite number of rooms could have done: made room for the new by squeezing the old. Alternatively, the rooms could be ordered circularly, resulting in the following: first, the guest in room #N shifts to room #1; later, the guests in all rooms numbered higher than N/2 redistribute themselves among all evens, which are already occupied by the former occupants of odd-numbered rooms N/2 or less. After the fist set of shifts, there are no unoccupied rooms and the new guest is out of luck. After the second set of shifts, the odds are unoccupied because the evens are twice occupied. Craig also errs in thinking the new guest-list would be "just infinite". It certainly remains infinite, but it's no more "just infinite" than "11 mice" is just odd. In certain circumstances, it is useless to know anything more than a number's parity. In such circumstances, and particularly when dealing with large numbers, odds will be simplified to "o" or "1" or "odd". Similarly, 1—and, less often, infinity—is often an insignificant addition to infinity. In such cases, "infinite" simply suffices. Otherwise, mathematicians distinguish infinities by their relation to the set of natural numbers, in which case the hotel had N, N+1, and 2N (or 2N+1, depending on the second hypothetical's memory) guests, respectively. In any case, it shouldn't be at all surprising that intuition breaks down in the case of infinities. It wasn't long ago we finally wrapped our heads around the idea of 0, so there's no reason to throw in the towel and find God just because infinity is weird. God and Complexity: "The idea that complex things need to be created by ever more complex things is contra-observation", but the idea that the designer must be more complex than the design certainly isn't. Darwin's simple-to-complex works because simple did not design complex. But when you add purpose to the cause, you encumber it with all the complexity of the result. Conclusion: Pro wants me to "explain how posting numerous unobserved processes is more parsimonious than positing intelligence", but he has yet to explain how the general category "unintelligence" is any less observed or parsimonious than the general category "intelligence". And we can only speak in generalities, because Pro refuses to explain the processes that brought us from his particular designer's intelligence to now, genesis, or anywhere in between. He is ashamed of being a Christian and cringes at my use of the word "God", so I doubt he would go any further than "intelligence" even if we had 10 debates. But for unintelligent causation, he is extremely interested in the processes involved in particular theories. Such processes are often considered to be plural because that's what the data suggests. ID can just as easily be singular, because there is no evidence for it one way or the other.