Explanatory Filter
From EvoWiki
The Explanatory Filter is a protocol, devised by intelligent design Creationist William Dembski, which purports to be able to detect whether or not an arbitrary entity (object, life form, etc) was designed by intelligent agency. If such a protocol actually did exist, and actually did what it's claimed to, it would be a valuable addition to the set of scientific/intellectual tools; sadly, Dembski's Explanatory Filter does not live up to its press releases.
The Explanatory Filter operates by 'filtering out' everything which is not Design, and declaring whatever is left to be Design. As Dembski puts it:
- Roughly speaking the filter asks three questions and in the following order: (1) Does a law explain it? (2) Does chance explain it? (3) Does design explain it?
The problem with this is that we cannot filter out everything which is not Design! If used on an entity that is the result of processes not currently known, or of a currently-unknown concatenation of known processes, the Filter would tell us that that entity is Designed. As a practical matter, the Filter cannot actually be successfully applied by non-omniscients. Thus, it is an excellent example of the Sherlock Holmes Fallacy.
By way of demonstration, consider that historically, nearly everything has been considered the direct result of an intelligent agency before people understood it. Storms were caused by Thunder gods. How could water get up into the sky without divine help? How could it gather? What else could explain lightning? But it doesn't end there. How could the planets stay up without angels? What could explain gems or metal veins being embedded inside other rocks? What else but angry gods could cause plagues? The list is endless. And the list is, for every currently known phenomenon, a long line of errors. That is, Dembski's filter has been applied repeatedly throughout history and been wrong every single time. Historically, science has always begun when arguments from ignorance like Dembski's are rejected and stymied when they are proclaimed science.
It is worth noting that in spite of IDists' claims that Dembski's Filter demonstrates that life was Designed, nobody has ever actually applied the Filter to any life-form, nor yet even to any identifiable aspect nor feature of any life form.
