evolution, empiricism and purposeness (1)
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/14/2019 Evolution, Empiricism and Purposeness (1)
1/9
1
EVOLUTION,
EMPIRICISM AND
PURPOSENESS (1)
Jess Zamora Bonilla
November, 2009
-
8/14/2019 Evolution, Empiricism and Purposeness (1)
2/9
2
MAIN MOTIVATION
Analysis of the use of some concepts from
philosophy of science in the arguments of
defenders of Intelligent Design (ID).
E.g.
-Scientific explanation and inference
-Information
-Structure and dynamics of theories, and relation to
empirical data
-
8/14/2019 Evolution, Empiricism and Purposeness (1)
3/9
3
DEMBSKIS
EXPLANATORY
FILTER
To explain a phenomenon P,
try first through necessity,
then by chance,and, if these dont work,
infer that P comes out ofdesign
-
8/14/2019 Evolution, Empiricism and Purposeness (1)
4/9
4
WHAT DOES EXPLANATION MEAN IN
THE EXPLANATORY FILTER
In empirical science, to explain is to provide a
theoretical modelthat allows to...
logically or statistically derive the explanandum
from assumptions about regularities andprevious contingentconditions
-
8/14/2019 Evolution, Empiricism and Purposeness (1)
5/9
5
In this sense, in order to be part of a REAL scientific
explanation, design must be included in a MODEL
indicating how the explanandum FOLLOWSfrom the
models assumptions
Design (as, by the way, natural selection) has tobe seen more as a promiseof explanation than as
an actualexplanation
The scientific value of these promises depends on
their success in helping us make new empirical
discoveries
-
8/14/2019 Evolution, Empiricism and Purposeness (1)
6/9
6
More importantly, necessity, chance and design are
by no means alternative types of explanation.
1: Necessityrefers to the existence of a regularity
that describes the way(i.e., the mechanism
through which)the phenomenon arises
(by the way, the theory of natural selection not doing so, is whatID defenders take as the main reason to reject it; but they dont
demand the same to ID)
Empirically given purposeful causes are just aparticular case ofnatural mechanisms of that kind
Design is a mere subclass of necessity (i.e., of the
notion of causal mechanism).
-
8/14/2019 Evolution, Empiricism and Purposeness (1)
7/9
7
Corollary:
There is no reason to infer that there are no natural
mechanisms (besides the natural mechanisms
purposeful agents consist in) that can produce
outcomes with specified complexity, since (known)
purposeful agents are just a kindof natural
mechanisms
This does not entail thatall existing purposeful
agents are natural,
only that the inference to design-instead-of-necesity
is not granted
-
8/14/2019 Evolution, Empiricism and Purposeness (1)
8/9
8
2: Chance enters in an explanation always as a
the indeterminate element(i.e., the stochastic
part) of the regularities employed (or of the initial
conditions measurement)
Any explanatory model produces a particular
statistical distribution of outcomes (i.e., it is a data
generation mechanism)
When, in other cases, we say that something isexplained through chance, what we really mean is
that it is NOT explained at all
-
8/14/2019 Evolution, Empiricism and Purposeness (1)
9/9
9
So, the right explanatory filter would look
something like this:
Phenomenon PExplained by someproposedmechanism
M1, M2, ..., Mn, ...?
(Mi = specific laws + specific random noise)
(some Mis being purposeful agents)
Yes?: OKNo? Then: P unexplained
(Nota bene: Dembskis filter would not leaveANYTHING
unexplained, what is unrealistic as a scientific method)