Unfixing Design Fixation: From Cause to Computer Simulation

This paper argues that design fixation, in part, entails fixation at the level of meta‐representation, the representation of the relation between a representation and its reference. In this paper, we present a mathematical model that mimics the idea of how fixation can occur at the meta‐representation level. In this model, new abstract concepts derived from the meta‐representation are not simple combinations of the design ideas expressed in the primary representation. Instead, the process of meta‐representation corresponds to the abstraction of new features at a higher, hierarchically separated level of representation from an existing one. We show a computational process of pattern extraction from existing design representations that results in the crystallization of design ideas or ‘chunks’ at an abstract level. The relation between the representation and its referent is explicitly described in these ‘chunks’, yet the ‘chunks’ have different properties from the properties of the original representation.     

Sober on Intelligent Design

This response to Sober's (2008) Evidence and Evolution draws out and criticizes some consequences of his analysis because of its reliance on a likelihood framework for adjucating the dispute between (Intelligent Design) creationism and evolution. In particular, Sober's analysis does not allow it to be formally claimed that evolutionary theory better explains living phenomena than Intelligent Design and makes irrelevant the contribution of the theory of evolution by natural selection to assessments of the status of the argument from design. Finally, a rudimentary alternative framework for theory confirmation is presented here which avoids these conclusions by rejecting likelihoodism and deploying multiple criteria to the problem of scientific theory choice.