Intelligent Design (book)
Encyclopedia
Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology is a controversial 1999 book by William A. Dembski
in which he presents an argument
in support of the conjecture of intelligent design
. In it, Dembski defines the term "specified complexity
", and argues that instances of it in nature cannot be explained by Darwinian
evolution
, but instead are consistent with the notion of intelligent design. He also derives an instance of his self-declared law of conservation of information and uses it to argue against Darwinian evolution. The book is a summary treatment of the mathematical theory he presents in The Design Inference
(1998), and is intended to be largely understandable by a nontechnical audience. Dembski also provides a Christian theological commentary on, and analysis of, what he perceives to be the historical and cultural significance of the ideas.
s from God
in the Bible
, and notes that such signs have specificity and complexity
, which enables them to be clearly discernible. He considers this to be a general insight regarding recognition of the "Divine Finger", and states, "My aim in this book is to take this premodern logic of signs and make it rigorous."
A review of naturalistic
criticisms of miracles, particularly those by Benedict Spinoza and Friedrich Schleiermacher, follows. Dembski critiques the critiques, and derides the methodological naturalism that, he says, is part of their legacy.
He then focuses on the history of natural theology
in Britain, recounting the teleological argument
s of William Paley
and Thomas Reid
, and the primary reason for their demise, the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection
. Upon introducing it, Dembski immediately criticizes it and commends the critique of Charles Hodge
, who he says argued that Darwinism "was trying to subsume intelligent causation under physical causation."
Intelligent design, the central idea of the book, is then introduced. He distinguishes it from theistic evolution
and, especially, purely naturalistic evolution. Explaining a motivation for it, he states, "Darwinism is the totalizing claim that [natural selection] accounts for all the diversity and complexity of life. The evidence simply does not support this claim.... [There] is always a temptation in science [to] think that one's theory encompasses a far bigger domain than it actually does." He lists numerous phenomena that he claims have proven to be "utterly intractable" for natural selection, including the origin of life, the origin of the genetic code
, and the Cambrian explosion
.
Then comes the technical theory. He introduces his complexity-specification criterion
, which states that in order to infer design, three criteria must be met simultaneously: contingency, complexity, and specification. According to Dembski, the first rules out necessity; the latter two rule out chance. Combined with his universal probability bound
of 10−150, he claims that this criterion is completely accurate when applied to actual objects "with known underlying causal story."
Dembski derives what he purports to be an instance of what Peter Medawar
(in 1984) identified as the law of conservation of information. However mathematician Jeffrey Shallit
has rebutted this claim, stating that "Medawar’s 'law' is not the same as Dembski’s" in that Medawar "makes no mention of probabilities or the name Shannon", and that "Medawar’s law, by the way, can be made rigorous, but in the context of Kolmogorov information, not Shannon information or Dembski’s 'complex specified information'."
Dembski then introduces the term "complex specified information" (CSI), and claims that CSI is indicative of design. He considers whether the only known natural mechanisms of physical law
and chance
, alone or in combination, can generate such information, and concludes that they cannot. He argues that this is so because laws can only shift around or lose information, but do not produce it, and chance can produce complex unspecified information, or unspecified complex information, but not CSI; he provides a mathematical analysis that he claims demonstrates that law and chance working together cannot generate CSI, either.
Moreover, Dembski claims that CSI is holistic
(with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, and that this decisively eliminates Darwinian evolution as a possible means of its creation. He then enumerates the possible sources of CSI in biological organisms: inheritance
, selection
, and infusion
. He states that the first two sources are "unable to account for the CSI in biological systems (and specifically for the irreducible complexity
of certain biochemical systems...)", and therefore concludes that CSI must come from infusion. He further argues that biotic infusion cannot ultimately account for CSI, and so abiotic infusion must be the source.
Dembski maintains that by process of elimination, CSI is best explained as being due to intelligence, and is therefore a reliable indicator of design
. He implies that his theory can be useful in several fields, including forensic science, intellectual property law
, archaeology
, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
.
Dembski concludes the book with comments on what he sees as the theological implications of intelligent design. In an appendix, he offers answers to various objections to intelligent design.
criticized the book as "stealth creationism
," and presenting an "argument from design" that "donned yet another set of clothes." Stenger further noted, "While he insists that this argument does not depend on any specific theological assumptions, his book unabashedly promotes his interpretation that the design inferred is the work of the Christian God."
Some criticisms also focuses on the technical theory presented, namely, specified complexity and Dembski's statements regarding the law of conservation of information. It has been argued that together they consititute nothing more than a re-statement of the second law of thermodynamics
, which is known to permit the development of local concentrations of increased order in the universe provided that there is a counterbalancing increase in disorder elsewhere. Regarding physics, "When Dembski says that information cannot be generated naturally, he seems to be voicing yet another muddled version of the common creationist assertion that the second law forbids the generation of order by natural processes. Like his predecessors, he ignores the caveat "closed system" in the formal statement of the second law."
Dembski's reliance on a such a controversial and unaccepted model is also not accepted in academia." Critics like Jason Rosenhouse, a mathematics professor at James Madison University claim Dembski's book contributes nothing to the discussion of evolution and intelligent design since Dembski's assertions ride on Behe's claim, and that claim is false.
William A. Dembski
William Albert "Bill" Dembski is an American proponent of intelligent design, well known for promoting the concept of specified complexity...
in which he presents an argument
Argument
In philosophy and logic, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, or give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion.Argument may also refer to:-Mathematics and computer science:...
in support of the conjecture of intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
. In it, Dembski defines the term "specified complexity
Specified complexity
Specified complexity is an argument proposed by William Dembski and used by him and others to promote intelligent design. According to Dembski, the concept is intended to formalize a property that singles out patterns that are both specified and complex...
", and argues that instances of it in nature cannot be explained by Darwinian
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, but instead are consistent with the notion of intelligent design. He also derives an instance of his self-declared law of conservation of information and uses it to argue against Darwinian evolution. The book is a summary treatment of the mathematical theory he presents in The Design Inference
The Design Inference
The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities is a book by American philosopher William A. Dembski, a proponent of intelligent design, which sets out to establish a mechanism by which evidence of intelligent design in nature could be inferred...
(1998), and is intended to be largely understandable by a nontechnical audience. Dembski also provides a Christian theological commentary on, and analysis of, what he perceives to be the historical and cultural significance of the ideas.
Overview
Dembski begins by analyzing signOmen
An omen is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change...
s from God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, and notes that such signs have specificity and complexity
Complexity
In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of complex systems theory. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are...
, which enables them to be clearly discernible. He considers this to be a general insight regarding recognition of the "Divine Finger", and states, "My aim in this book is to take this premodern logic of signs and make it rigorous."
A review of naturalistic
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
criticisms of miracles, particularly those by Benedict Spinoza and Friedrich Schleiermacher, follows. Dembski critiques the critiques, and derides the methodological naturalism that, he says, is part of their legacy.
He then focuses on the history of natural theology
Natural theology
Natural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, theology from a priori reasoning.Marcus Terentius Varro ...
in Britain, recounting the teleological argument
Teleological argument
A teleological or design argument is an a posteriori argument for the existence of God based on apparent design and purpose in the universe. The argument is based on an interpretation of teleology wherein purpose and intelligent design appear to exist in nature beyond the scope of any such human...
s of William Paley
William Paley
William Paley was a British Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian. He is best known for his exposition of the teleological argument for the existence of God in his work Natural Theology, which made use of the watchmaker analogy .-Life:Paley was Born in Peterborough, England, and was...
and Thomas Reid
Thomas Reid
The Reverend Thomas Reid FRSE , was a religiously trained Scottish philosopher, and a contemporary of David Hume, was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment...
, and the primary reason for their demise, the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
. Upon introducing it, Dembski immediately criticizes it and commends the critique of Charles Hodge
Charles Hodge
Charles Hodge was the principal of Princeton Theological Seminary between 1851 and 1878. A Presbyterian theologian, he was a leading exponent of historical Calvinism in America during the 19th century. He was deeply rooted in the Scottish philosophy of Common Sense Realism...
, who he says argued that Darwinism "was trying to subsume intelligent causation under physical causation."
Intelligent design, the central idea of the book, is then introduced. He distinguishes it from theistic evolution
Theistic evolution
Theistic evolution or evolutionary creation is a concept that asserts that classical religious teachings about God are compatible with the modern scientific understanding about biological evolution...
and, especially, purely naturalistic evolution. Explaining a motivation for it, he states, "Darwinism is the totalizing claim that [natural selection] accounts for all the diversity and complexity of life. The evidence simply does not support this claim.... [There] is always a temptation in science [to] think that one's theory encompasses a far bigger domain than it actually does." He lists numerous phenomena that he claims have proven to be "utterly intractable" for natural selection, including the origin of life, the origin of the genetic code
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
, and the Cambrian explosion
Cambrian explosion
The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively rapid appearance, around , of most major phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record, accompanied by major diversification of other organisms, including animals, phytoplankton, and calcimicrobes...
.
Then comes the technical theory. He introduces his complexity-specification criterion
Specified complexity
Specified complexity is an argument proposed by William Dembski and used by him and others to promote intelligent design. According to Dembski, the concept is intended to formalize a property that singles out patterns that are both specified and complex...
, which states that in order to infer design, three criteria must be met simultaneously: contingency, complexity, and specification. According to Dembski, the first rules out necessity; the latter two rule out chance. Combined with his universal probability bound
Universal probability bound
A universal probability bound is a probabilistic threshold whose existence is asserted by William A. Dembski and is used by him in his works promoting intelligent design...
of 10−150, he claims that this criterion is completely accurate when applied to actual objects "with known underlying causal story."
Dembski derives what he purports to be an instance of what Peter Medawar
Peter Medawar
Sir Peter Brian Medawar OM CBE FRS was a British biologist, whose work on graft rejection and the discovery of acquired immune tolerance was fundamental to the practice of tissue and organ transplants...
(in 1984) identified as the law of conservation of information. However mathematician Jeffrey Shallit
Jeffrey Shallit
Jeffrey Outlaw Shallit is a computer scientist, number theorist, a noted advocate for civil liberties on the Internet, and a noted critic of intelligent design. He is married to Anna Lubiw, also a computer scientist....
has rebutted this claim, stating that "Medawar’s 'law' is not the same as Dembski’s" in that Medawar "makes no mention of probabilities or the name Shannon", and that "Medawar’s law, by the way, can be made rigorous, but in the context of Kolmogorov information, not Shannon information or Dembski’s 'complex specified information'."
Dembski then introduces the term "complex specified information" (CSI), and claims that CSI is indicative of design. He considers whether the only known natural mechanisms of physical law
Physical law
A physical law or scientific law is "a theoretical principle deduced from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible by the statement that a particular phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions be present." Physical laws are typically conclusions...
and chance
Randomness
Randomness has somewhat differing meanings as used in various fields. It also has common meanings which are connected to the notion of predictability of events....
, alone or in combination, can generate such information, and concludes that they cannot. He argues that this is so because laws can only shift around or lose information, but do not produce it, and chance can produce complex unspecified information, or unspecified complex information, but not CSI; he provides a mathematical analysis that he claims demonstrates that law and chance working together cannot generate CSI, either.
Moreover, Dembski claims that CSI is holistic
Holism
Holism is the idea that all the properties of a given system cannot be determined or explained by its component parts alone...
(with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, and that this decisively eliminates Darwinian evolution as a possible means of its creation. He then enumerates the possible sources of CSI in biological organisms: inheritance
Inheritance
Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...
, selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
, and infusion
Infusion
An infusion is the outcome of steeping plants with desired chemical compounds or flavors in water or oil.-History:The first recorded use of essential oils was in the 10th or 11th century by the Persian polymath Avicenna, possibly in The Canon of Medicine.-Preparation techniques:An infusion is very...
. He states that the first two sources are "unable to account for the CSI in biological systems (and specifically for the irreducible complexity
Irreducible complexity
Irreducible complexity is an argument by proponents of intelligent design that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved from simpler, or "less complete" predecessors, through natural selection acting upon a series of advantageous naturally occurring, chance mutations...
of certain biochemical systems...)", and therefore concludes that CSI must come from infusion. He further argues that biotic infusion cannot ultimately account for CSI, and so abiotic infusion must be the source.
Dembski maintains that by process of elimination, CSI is best explained as being due to intelligence, and is therefore a reliable indicator of design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
. He implies that his theory can be useful in several fields, including forensic science, intellectual property law
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
, archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence
SETI
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence is the collective name for a number of activities people undertake to search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. Some of the most well known projects are run by the SETI Institute. SETI projects use scientific methods to search for intelligent life...
.
Dembski concludes the book with comments on what he sees as the theological implications of intelligent design. In an appendix, he offers answers to various objections to intelligent design.
Criticisms
Victor J. StengerVictor J. Stenger
Victor John Stenger is an American particle physicist, outspoken atheist, and author, now active in philosophy and popular religious skepticism....
criticized the book as "stealth creationism
Creationism
Creationism is the religious beliefthat humanity, life, the Earth, and the universe are the creation of a supernatural being, most often referring to the Abrahamic god. As science developed from the 18th century onwards, various views developed which aimed to reconcile science with the Genesis...
," and presenting an "argument from design" that "donned yet another set of clothes." Stenger further noted, "While he insists that this argument does not depend on any specific theological assumptions, his book unabashedly promotes his interpretation that the design inferred is the work of the Christian God."
Some criticisms also focuses on the technical theory presented, namely, specified complexity and Dembski's statements regarding the law of conservation of information. It has been argued that together they consititute nothing more than a re-statement of the second law of thermodynamics
Second law of thermodynamics
The second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. From the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the law deduced the principle of the increase of entropy and...
, which is known to permit the development of local concentrations of increased order in the universe provided that there is a counterbalancing increase in disorder elsewhere. Regarding physics, "When Dembski says that information cannot be generated naturally, he seems to be voicing yet another muddled version of the common creationist assertion that the second law forbids the generation of order by natural processes. Like his predecessors, he ignores the caveat "closed system" in the formal statement of the second law."
Dembski's reliance on a such a controversial and unaccepted model is also not accepted in academia." Critics like Jason Rosenhouse, a mathematics professor at James Madison University claim Dembski's book contributes nothing to the discussion of evolution and intelligent design since Dembski's assertions ride on Behe's claim, and that claim is false.
External links
Some criticisms
- How to Evolve Specified Complexity by Natural Means, Matt Young
- The Emperor's New Designer Clothes, Victor J. Stenger
- The Design Detectives, Jason Rosenhouse. Assistant Professor, Mathematics, James Madison UniversityJames Madison UniversityJames Madison University is a public coeducational research university located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, U.S. Founded in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg, the university has undergone four name changes before settling with James Madison University...
. Analysis of William A. Dembski's Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology, and Phillip Johnson's The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the Foundations of Naturalism