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The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities is a controversial 1998 book by the American mathematician, philosopher and theologian William Dembski. In it, Dembski sets out to establish a mechanism through which one could infer scientific evidence of intelligent design (ID) in nature using what he calls an "explanatory filter". The scientific communitySee: 1) List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design 2) Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District 4: whether ID is science#Page 83 of 139. The Discovery Institute's Dissent From Darwin Petition has been signed by about 500 scientists. The AAAS, the largest association of scientists in the U.S., has 120,000 members, and firmly rejects ID. More than 70,000 Australian scientists and educators condemn teaching of intelligent design in school science classes. List of statements from scientific professional organizations on the status intelligent design and other forms of creationism. including the The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, 1999 Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition views intelligent design not as a valid scientific theory but as pseudoscienceNational Science Teachers Association, a professional association of 55,000 science teachers and administrators in a 2005 press release: "We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president's top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science or junk science. "Biologists aren’t alarmed by intelligent design’s arrival in Dover and elsewhere because they have all sworn allegiance to atheistic materialism; they’re alarmed because intelligent design is junk science." H. Allen Orr. Annals of Science. New Yorker May 2005.Devolution—Why intelligent design isn't. Also, Robert T. Pennock Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism.
Overview
In the book Dembski introduces what he calls an "explanatory filter"; a method by which chance is ruled out when a highly improbable event conforms to a discernible pattern which is given independently of the event itself. A pattern is given independently of an event if we can formulate this pattern without any information concerning the event itself according to Dembski. Dembski calls a probability conjoined with such a pattern a "specified" probability and formulates what he calls the Law of Small Probability: specified events of small probability do not occur by chance.
Dembski claims his concept is useful to those concerned with detecting design, forensic scientists, detectives, insurance fraud investigators, cryptographers, and SETI investigators, and theologians who argue for the fine–tuning of the universe and the Anthropic Principle.
Dembski defines "design" to mean "neither regularity nor chance,"; if something is not explicable in terms of natural law or chance, then by definition it is due to "design" in his thinking. He argues that to say that something is attributable to "design" is to say that it exhibits a certain kind of pattern. Dembski then offers a three–step schema of actualization–exclusion–specification to move from "design" to an intelligent designer, as proving that something is due to neither regularity nor chance does not logically entail that it is due to intelligence. He says that as one finds that a certain possibility has been actualized (presumably requiring a cause), one excludes accounts of the event based on natural law explanations (showing that the event is physically contingent), and finally one specifies that contingency so as to show that it conforms to an independently given pattern (distinguishing choice from mere chance as the cause of the event).
Dembski concludes that life itself is such a highly improbable event, conforming to a discernible pattern, and so serves as evidence in-and-of-itself of intelligent design.
Peer review controversy
The book was published by the Cambridge University Press as part of the monograph series Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory. It was peer-reviewed by philosophers. In 2003 Dembski cited it as one of "a few recent peer-reviewed publications supporting intelligent design in biology", arguing that it gives legitimacy to intelligent design.* Many biologists struggle to understand the material, because Demski's work relies heavily on mathematics (especially probability theory), and therefore treats biology quantitatively rather than qualitatively. Many biologists would like to see Demski's work rejected, as evolutionary theory generally thrives in more subjective qualitative symantics rather than addressing the quantitative issues it is subject to.
The Discovery Institute, where Dembski serves as a fellow, continues to cite The Design Inference as a "Peer-Reviewed Scientific Books Supportive of Intelligent Design". * Biology being the field in which intelligent proponents make their claims, critics of ID (who include the vast majority of the scientific community) point out that The Design Inference was reviewed by philosophers not biologists, and is limited in its scope to philosophy not biology. However, they fail to realize that Dembski's criteria for detecting design are universal criteria, and therefore subsume the field of biology (as well as computer and information technology, among other fields). The Discovery Institute's characterization of The Design Inference as a peer-reviewed scientific book has been dismissed by both critics of intelligent design and the judge in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, a claim that clearly demonstrates their bias (since ID material has been published in multiple peer reviewed journals, including the Journal of Molecular Biology, the Journal of Theoretical Biology, the Annual Review of Genetics, etc).
The Design Inference is specifically mentioned in the Wedge strategy as an example of accomplishing one of the intelligent design movement's five year goals of "Thirty published books on design and its cultural implications (sex, gender issues, medicine, law, and religion). Described as "offers a powerful altenative Darwinism," the book is touted as being "published by major secular university publishers." * (PDF file)
References
External links
Pro-ID
Anti-ID
- How Not to Detect Design (pdf file) by Branden Fitelson, Christopher Stephens and Elliott Sober.
- The advantages of theft over toil: the design inference and arguing from ignorance by John S. Wilkins and Wesley R. Elsberry.
- Claim CI110.4: Intelligent design in biology has been supported by several peer-reviewed journals and books
- Claim CI110: Complex Specified information indicates design
"The Design Inference"