Talk:Specified complexity

message: I have made three small changes to this article with all three being reverted with no legitimate reason.
One was single word change to correct a simple but clear semantic error in the first sentence (SC is not an "argumet"; it is a concept used in certain arguments). It was reverted claiming I gave no citation despite the original sentence having no source citation itself.
The second was also a correction to a word, changing an incorrect statement that Dembski claims something "impossible" when he actually never says that. Again, no source citation is given for using the word impossible, but the correction was reverted without explanation or justification.
The third was also a clear correction and improvement to the article, simply moving a paragraph that was clearly describing significant work by Dembski's critics into the section called "Critisisms" where it belonged.
A fourth change removed a couple of sentences that confused two different conceptual tools that Dembski discusses, and erroneously equated them -- again with no source citation. (If the original author took the effort to seek a source citation, he might end up clearing up his own misunderstanding of what Dembski has written.)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.139.23.169 (talk) 06:43, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbitrary bias of the "controllers" make Wikipedia laughable. 

message: I've just corrected the Elsberry and Shallit loc. cit., but the Dembski one ("(loc. cit. p 16)" cited for "Quoting Dembski...") as it is too far separated from any of his longer works (and there are too many of them clumped together) for me to have any certainty as to which it is referring to. Does anybody know? HrafnTalkStalk 03:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dembski loc. cit. 

message: People come to wikipedia for answers on what they don't know about.  Unfortunately, the opening of this article is impossible for a layman to understand.  I've been studying ID and the related mathematics for a while, and I can't make head or tail of what specified complexity is aiming to prove.  Would it be accurate to say that the ultimate idea behind specified complexity is that life is too complex to have evolved?  From my limited understanding of it, the idea is that the probability of life evolving to where it has is so low as to be considered impossible.  For the sake of anyone trying to understand this, please add a sentence at the opening to the effect of "Specified complexity aims to prove that [this is the part I don't get]."  Tealwisp (talk) 06:31, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is, I suspect, to a large extent that (i) Dembski hasn't (in spite of repeated attempts) come up with a definition of 'specified complexity' that is meaningful (to Information Theorists) & (ii) that he conflates information and probability. Therefore the article must attempt to give Dembski's equivocating explanation of what he thinks it is (without giving WP:UNDUE weight to his claims on behalf of it) & WP:DUE weight to the scientific community's views on what they think it is not (not a meaningful concept, not useful, not a good argument for ID). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 06:41, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  What about the opening two sentences of the second paragraph? --CSTAR (talk) 07:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

text: Think this one deserves a bit more TALK.  Just the meaning of the term is to convey the combination of both complex and specified.  It also seems both sides can say "Complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance, that is highly unlikely to have been acquired by random chance alone."  (Intelligent Design as Information Theory 1998 re Watchmaker 1987, p9).  Discussion about the two together seems to diverge at the particular meanings Dembski used for complex and specified.   After that it seems are more significant areas of controversy in: (1) the applications at actual calculations; (2) that it's become a trigger phrase; (3) philosophy viewpoints in how math is treated.  For the article itself I suggest for now it's all findable in google or creationwiki.org, and that this TALK was more of a question/comment to lead to result other than background info.   Markbassett (talk) 17:51, 22 December 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  The article is enigmatic at best 

message: I am new to wikipedia, please excuse if this is a stupid question: some references in this article are what I consider "real" scientific references, i.e. identifying Author, Title, and all the details of When and Where this was published (e.g. scientific journal or book); however, a lot of the references just open up the original document without any mention IF and WHERE this document was ever published... am I just missing something?
thanks for the help!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Madbat089 (talk • contribs) 20:51, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Like all Wikipedia articles, it's a work in progress. Standards of citation have developed and changed, and we'll need to bring references up to date when time permits! Wikipedia:Citing sources gives the principles, and alternative acceptable ways of doing the references. Generally, we follow the precedent set by citations introduced earlier, but in this case useful info is missing, as you say. For most sources I find it easiest to use this tool, using the drop down menu for the type of source, and clicking on the checkboxes for "Show extended fields" and "Add access date (if relevant)", as well as "Add ref tag" when a new inline cite tag is needed. As an example, this edit formatted the first reference using the tool in that way, and this edit then deleted unused fields. It's important to check the link works and ensure that the source is correctly described. Thanks for the enquiry, dave souza, talk 11:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  source of citations? 

message: Synthese Volume 178, Number 2 / January 2011 is an entire issue devoted to 'Evolution and its Rivals'. It includes articles by such heavyweights as Robert T. Pennock, Wesley Elsberry and Jeffrey Shallit, Sahotra Sarkar, Niall Shanks, Barbara Forrest & James Henry Fetzer. Elsberry & Shallit's article, Information theory, evolutionary computation, and Dembski’s “complex specified information” would be particularly relevant to this topic. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 04:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''[[Synthese]]'' on 'Evolution and its Rivals' 

message: Is an essay, published nowhere but talkreason and cited nowhere I can find but Wikipedia really worthy of note? 
If there isn't a peer reviewed rebuttal to the conservation of information, should Wikipedia by referencing some hostile person's online page, because it is typeset like an article?
99.88.232.177 (talk) 08:52, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Online Essay 

message: A passing observation:
The article suggests that the law of conservation of information is not given serious consideration by the scientific community. This is strictly speaking not correct. For example, in the area of digital philosophy, the concept is a key point of debate and discussion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_philosophy) - an entirely secular branch of thinking, albeit rather abstract by the standards of conventional physical sciences. The question of whether such a law could exist is actually an open and engaging philosophical issue, which has interesting implications that are entirely unrelated to this narrow perspective of the origins debate, and to dismiss it because of posturing on the origins debate is a poor showing.
regs, etc - M.S.
:Indeed: conservation of information is also part of the Black hole information paradox, which says "the predominant belief among physicists is that information is preserved". --Rumping (talk) 08:35, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  conservation of information - does occur in other areas of science 

message: I question the neutrality of this article and lack of citations in some of the criticisms.  The entire introduction is a criticism section so by the time you get to the theory you have no idea what you are reading.  Reduce criticisms in intro to a sentence or two, and restrict the rest to the criticisms section.  BTW, I have no real interest in this theory, I was directed here doing a search on "conservation of information" which shows up in other fields including computers science and quantum mechanics.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.86.71.226 (talk) 13:30, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms citation and neutrality 

message: "A study by Wesley Elsberry and Jeffrey Shallit states that "Dembski's work is riddled with inconsistencies, equivocation, flawed use of mathematics, poor scholarship, and misrepresentation of others' results".[5] Another objection concerns Dembski's calculation of probabilities. According to Martin Nowak, a Harvard professor of mathematics and evolutionary biology "We cannot calculate the probability that an eye came about. We don't have the information to make the calculation".[6] Critics also reject applying specified complexity to infer design as an argument from ignorance."
Is that kind of stuff even relevant? I thought Specified Complexity was a mathematical term, why did this page devolve into discussing/critiquing the intelligent design theory and other peripheral stuff, instead of just the term itself?
SuperMudz (talk) 17:29, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: As the sources show, specified complexity is ID creationist Bill Dembski's attempt to give mathematical backing to intelligent design, which itself is an argument from ignorance. We note earlier use of the phrase as a way of defining life, but Dembski's formulation is the most widely known use of the term. If it is also used as a mathematical term, then verification is needed from reliable sources before that can be covered in this article, or in a separate article. . . dave souza, talk 18:27, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Additionally, WP:NOTDICT; this page is about a concept relating to creationism, not the words "specified complexity". If another concept exists under that name, then it would belong in a separate article.   — Jess· Δ♥ 18:32, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

text: Also, that material would belong in another article, as it has nothing to do with the subject of this article. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 10:17, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's The Subject Of This Page? 

message: Wikipedia has a serious problem here. I was redirected here by searching "Conservation of Information". L.Susskind (Stanford) has said (Theoretical Minimum courses) that the Law of Conservation of Information is THE fundamental principle in Physics, and yet searching for it leads DIRECTLY to this fringe pseudoscience. Hey, why not redirect searches for "Evolution" and "Darwin" here too? And might as well add "Science" and "Logic" as well. Oh, and don't forget "Biology"! I have started this new section (rather than just agreeing/reinforcing a similar comment in the section "conservation of information") because I view this as a really, really major error. (Although, I acknowledge that (probably) most Physicists are unaware (or only vaguely aware) of this Law, since it isn't taught in basic/core Physics courses, afaik.) See Susskind's Strings lectures (or was is Cosmology?) in Supplemental courses.
:: As an aside, this article is super-saturated with the name Dembski, if this concept is almost exclusively used by only one man, then does it really belong here? (That is: find and reference more users of the concept, or merge this page with his. (and dramatically shorten it)) And also, why aren't there more secondary sources (as opposed to primary) for this? Is this a significant concept? Finally, surely someone (it can't be my original research o_o) has pointed out that the probability of ANYTHING is virtually zero. That is, the probability of YOU reading this, right now (whenever that is) is as close to ZERO as it is possible to be. Can we therefore conclude that you're not here (or that this doesn't exist)? This is a common abuse of statistics and probability, and is caused by a failure to use an adequately defined population (distribution) when speaking about probability). (ie. it is sloppy (false, erroneous, and misleading) mathematical logic.)Abitslow (talk) 18:18, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I should add that the scientifically recognized Law of Conservation of Information is NOT at all the same as Dembski's "Law".Abitslow (talk) 18:23, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: So, this page is for discussing improvements to the article, not for discussing the subject. Largely, that involves presenting sources and proposing specific changes. Do you have any sources you'd like to propose? What wording would you like to see changed. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 20:05, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

text: For the redirect, how about unitarity (physics)? Not the greatest of articles, but it does cover the correct material. I believe the point about probabilities always being zero is already in the article: "For example, if a coin is tossed randomly 1000 times, the probability of any particular outcome occurring is roughly one in 10^300. For any particular specific outcome of the coin-tossing process, the a priori probability that this pattern occurred is thus one in 10^300, which is astronomically smaller than Dembski's universal probability bound of one in 10^150. Yet we know that the post hoc probability of its happening is exactly one, since we observed it happening." [Oddly, this is cited to "William A. Dembski (1998) Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information". Did Dembski really criticize his own theory?] Ben Standeven (talk) 02:11, 16 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ben Standeven -  random coin tosses are complex but not specified.  The article probably should convey more on the meaning if the 'specified' part is unclear.  See for example here.  The article could also be more clear that Dembski did not initiate the term but rather proposed CSI to quantify it and a number 10^150 as limit being applied to life and the topic of ID.  That association has made the [WP:COMMONNAME] meaning of it to be an ID argument, but that the common usage differs from the concept would seem appropriate.  Markbassett (talk) 15:45, 22 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Error here. 

message: Today I edited the intro to this page giving credit to Orgel. Why did someone change it back? It was Orgel who coined the phrase, it has been highjacked since by ID folks but it is a legitimate scientific concept when used as originally intended. Please explain why you reversed my edit. --Statedclearly (talk) 23:13, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: See WP:NOTDICT. This article isn't about the term "Specified Complexity". The article is about the topic found within ID. We might be able to include mention somewhere about what other things the term has meant, but that isn't the subject of this article, so it can't be put into the very first sentence, where we are expected to define the topic.   — Jess· Δ♥ 05:02, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

text: I am not a scientist, yet I recognize the damage done by pseudosciences such as "Intelligent Design" as it is popularly known. I fully support Statedclearly. We should not permit pseudosciences to dictate our language without our putting up a fight.   TomS TDotO (talk) 10:55, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Guys, read WP:NOTDICT. This is not a dictionary, and this article is not about the term specified complexity. This article is about ID. If you want to discuss other uses of the term, we would need to do that in a different article.   — Jess· Δ♥ 16:10, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: We're all on the same side, and I think that we can think up something which is fine for all of us. Your suggestion sounds like a good one. See Irreducible complexity, which has a hatnote which explains that the article is about the expression as used in Intelligent design, but there is a legitimate use in Systems theory, for which see Emergence. As far as I know, the only place that we can direct one to is the article on Leslie Orgel, so we could have a hatnote which says something like "This article is about the expression used in the pseudoscience of Intelligent design. For an exposition of the scientific concept see Leslie Orgel#Specified complexity" ... and having prepared for this by putting the paragraph about SC in the article on LO. Or something like that. We don't have to construct a full article on scientific SC (although someone may find that worthwhile). The important result is: The reader who comes to this article on SC seeking information on the scientific concept is immediately directed away from the irrelevant stuff about ID. The person who is interested in pseudoscience knows that this is the pace.    TomS TDotO (talk) 17:32, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, if there is another article which discusses "specified complexity" in another sense, we can place a hatnote. The problem is that right now there is no other article to direct to. I can't say if Orgel's use of the term warrants any weight in his bio, because I don't edit his bio, so that's a project you'd have to take on before considering a link to it here.   — Jess· Δ♥ 17:47, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: ISTM that there ought to be some place where the scientific concept of specified complexity is given its due treatment. It is embarrassing that the only place that it is described is in a reference in an article on some pseudoscience. If I were a little more "bold", I would create an article Specified complexity (science), and start it out as a stub by moving the brief mention that it has in this article, and a hatnote saying "This is about the scientific subject. For the pseudoscientific expression, see Specified complexity (pesudoscience)".    TomS TDotO (talk) 02:03, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Creating a new article is the obvious choice, but it requires the topic to meet the GNG. Basically, we determine that by evaluating coverage in sources. So if that's your goal, then start collecting sources first (google books and google scholar are great for that). If the topic is significant to Orgel but not independently notable, then it won't warrant a new page, but could still belong in his bio. If it's not signifncant to Orgel and not notable, then it probably doesn't belong anywhere on WP. I'd venture a guess it falls somewhere between option 1 (notable) and option 2 (significant to Orgel)... probably closer to the latter.   — Jess· Δ♥ 07:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

text: Statedclearly, I'm reading what you're writing, but I'm afraid you're not showing me the same courtesy. You need to read WP:NOTDICT. Unless you are claiming that Orgel's Specified Complexity is the same thing as ID, then it isn't appropriate here, because this article is devoted to ID, not Orgel. I get that you want to cover Orgel's use of the term, and I'm on board with that, but it doesn't belong in this article. Really... please read WP:NOTDICT; wikipedia isn't a dictionary, and this article is not about the term "specified complexity". Let me know once you read that policy page and understand what I'm saying, and I'd be happy to explain how Orgel's ideas can be incorporated on wikipedia the right way.   — Jess· Δ♥ 19:05, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

text: "" Again, this article isn't about a term. It's about an idea. Are you suggesting the idea proposed by Orgel is the same as the idea proposed by Demski? StatedClearly suggested one was science unrelated to ID and the other pseudoscience related to ID, which means they are different. If they are the same thing, they belong in one article. If they are different things under the same name, they belong in two different articles. This is wikipedia policy; I've been editing a long time, and am very confident on how this policy is applied.   — Jess· Δ♥ 20:15, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

text: I responded to this on your talk page here, but some of it isn't directly relevant to this article, so there's no sense copying it over.   — Jess· Δ♥ 05:27, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Let's give credit to the actual concept, not the ID slant 

message: It's always hard to deal with an IP hopper so I've semi-protected this for a week. Doug Weller talk 07:52, 31 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article semi-protected for a week 

message: Which is the only option for continual reverts by IP hoppers outside of blocking a range, the only other way to enforce 3RR with IP hoppers. Doug Weller talk 11:18, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  And now protected for a month 

message: Science is never strictly empirical.  There's always the component of metaphysics.  Nature by itself cannot establish that "nature is all there is," or that Nature (note the capitalization) produced the universe.
To theorize a Designer is at least equally rational to positing that "Nature did it on Its own."  There was discussion above re. falsification, but nobody here seems to recognize that "Nature" as the be-all/end-all is itself unfalsifiable insofar as how naturalists treat it.  Their governing assumption - their faith position - is that no matter what is observed or experienced by humans, it "must" have a natural explanation.
Which brings me to this forum: Wikipedia is quite clearly controlled by those who are zealously devoted to a metaphysic, a world-narrative, that counters theism.  This despite the fact that theism is at least as rational as naturalism.  So because of the current anti-God controllers, I will no longer attempt to reedit the S.C. page.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:FEA8:8720:35B:4579:AE48:2DE1:2FEE (talk) 02:16, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text:  this is not a forum (please see WP:NOTFORUM).  Your claim that science treats nature as an end appears misinformed.  The metaphysics are also not very important when the models/theories work and successfully continue to allow to make informed predictions and discoveries (and even understand the past better than previous methods permitted).  Wikipedia has many editors of many backgrounds and faiths.  They still must report about what reliable sources say in articles, not preach about their beliefs.  Thank you, —PaleoNeonate – 02:24, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Metaphysics 

message: "Dembski describes specified complexity as a property in living things which can be observed by intelligent-design proponents."
I assume this has been allowed to stay for so long because of it's verbose wording, but in simplified English this is:
"Dembski describes specified complexity as something in living things which can be seen by creationists"
Whichever side you're on, the sentence is just nonsense written by some random person on Wikipedia, lack of any citation that Dembski said this is merely icing on the cake.
I'd change this, but I know you could change literally anything in this article and the extremely biased atheist mods of Wikipedia would revert literally anything regardless of content. User:Anonymous 07:46, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Good call, a citation was requested a long time ago, since it still lacks a reference I've deleted it. Thanks, . dave souza, talk 08:19, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Completely nonsensical sentence.