EPS Article Library
The Design Inference from Specified Complexity Defended by Scholars Outside the Intelligent Design Movement
References
[1]. William A. Dembski, "Another Way to Detect Design?"
http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_responsetowiscu.htm.
[2]. Cf. William A. Dembski, "The Logical Underpinnings of Intelligent
Design," in Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA, ed. William A. Dembski
and Michael Ruse (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 311-30; William
A. Dembski, "Reinstating Design within Science," in Darwinism, Design, and Public
Education, ed. John Angus Campbell and Stephen C. Meyer (East Lansing, MI:
Michigan State University Press, 2003), 403-17; William A. Dembski, "Naturalism
and Design," in Naturalism: A Critical Analysis, ed. William Lane Craig
and J. P. Moreland (London: Routledge, 2000).
[3]. William A. Dembski, The Design Inference
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Cf. Hugh Ross, review of The
Design Inference, by William Dembski, Philosophia Christi 2 (2000):
142-4.
[4]. Stephen C. Meyer, "Teleological Evolution: The Difference
It Doesn't Make," www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_teleologicalevolution.htm.
[5]. J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical
Foundations For A Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003),
356.
[6]. Richard Dawkins affirms the scientific status of ID in
The God Delusion: "The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence
is unequivocally a scientific question, even if it is not in practice-or not yet-a
decided one. . . . The methods we should use to settle the matter . . . would be
purely and entirely scientific methods" ([London: Bantam, 2006], 59). Cf. Michael
J. Behe, "The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis," Philosophia Christi
3 (2001): 165-79;
Michael J. Behe, "Whether Intelligent Design Is Science,"
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/filesDB-download.php?command=downloadandid=697;
William A. Dembski, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions
about Intelligent Design (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004);
William A. Dembski, "In Defence of Intelligent Design," in Oxford Handbook of
Religion and Science, ed. Philip Clayton (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006), 715-31;
Stephen C. Meyer, "The Scientific Status of Intelligent Design: The Methodological
Equivalence of Naturalistic and Non-Naturalistic Origins Theories," in Science
and Evidence for Design in the Universe, ed. Michael J. Behe, William A. Dembski,
and Stephen C. Meyer (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1999), 151-211;
Bradley Monton, "Is Intelligent Design Science? Dissecting the Dover Decision,"
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002583/01/Methodological_Naturalism_2.pdf;
Alvin Plantinga, "Whether ID Is Science Isn't Semantics,"
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=viewandid=3331;
Alvin Plantinga, "Methodological Naturalism?" Perspectives on Science and Christian
Faith 49 (1997): 143-54;
Del Ratzsche, Science and Its Limits: The Natural Sciences in Christian Perspective
(Leicester: Apollos, 2000);
David Tyler, "Is Design Part of Science?"
http://cis.org.uk/conferences/past_conferences/northern_conference_2006/D_Tyler.pdf;
Peter S. Williams, "If SETI Is Science and UFOlogy Is Not, Which Is Intelligent
Design Theory?"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_setivsufology.htm;
Peter S. Williams, "The Definitional Critique of Intelligent Design Theory: Lessons
from the Demise of Logical Positivism,"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_definitionalcritique.htm.
[7]. David K. DeWolf et al., Traipsing into Evolution: Intelligent
Design and the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Decision (Seattle: Discovery Institute,
2006), 30.
[8]. Cf. Francis J. Beckwith, Law, Darwinism, And Public
Education (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); Dembski, "In Defence of Intelligent
Design"; Dembski, The Design Revolution; DeWolf et al., Traipsing into
Evolution; Marcus Ross and Paul Nelson, "A Taxonomy of Teleology: Philip Johnson,
the Intelligent Design Community and Young-Earth Creationism," in Darwin's Nemesis:
Phillip Johnson and the Intelligent Design Movement, ed. William A. Dembski
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006).
[9]. Although natural theology can build upon ID. See Beckwith,
Law, Darwinism, And Public Education; Michael J. Behe, "Whether Intelligent
Design Is Science"; Dembski, "In Defence of Intelligent Design"; DeWolf et al.,
Traipsing into Evolution; Casey Luskin, "Is Intelligent Design Theory Really
an Argument for God?"
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1341.
[10]. Beckwith, Law, Darwinism, and Public Education,
xiii.
[11]. Marcus R. Ross, "Intelligent Design and Young Earth Creationism:
Investigating Nested Hierarchies of Philosophy and Belief," http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2003AM/finalprogram/abstract_58668.htm.
That is, it is at least sometimes detectable.
[12]. On cosmic fine-tuning, see William Lane Craig, "Review:
The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Possibilities,"
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=scholarly_articles_existence_of_God;
William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnot-Armstrong, God? A Debate between a Christian
and an Atheist (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004);
Moreland and Craig,
Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview;
Robert C. Koons, "Post-Agnostic
Science: How Physics Is Reviving the Argument from Design,"
http://www.arn.org/docs/koons/rk_postagnosticscience.htm.
On the fine-tuning of our local cosmic habitat, see Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards, The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2004).
On the origin of life, see Dean Kenyon, The Origin of Life,
http://webcast.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/UCSD_TV/6470oriLif.rm;
Charles B. Thaxton, TheOrigin of Life 2,
http://webcast.ucsd.edu:8080/ramgen/UCSD_TV/6464OnTheOriLif.rm;
Charles B. Thaxton, Walter L. Bradley, and Roger L. Olsen, The Mystery of Life's
Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, 4th ed. (Addison, TX: Lewis and Stanley,
1992);
Stephen C. Meyer, "DNA and the Origin of Life: Information, Specification
and Explanation," in Darwinism, Design, and Public Education, 223-85;
Stephen
C. Meyer, "DNA by Design: An Inference to the Best Explanation for the Origin of
Biological Information," Rhetoric and Public Affairs 1 (1999): 519-55;
Stephen C. Meyer, "Teleological Evolution: The Difference It Doesn't Make," in
Darwinism Defeated? The Johnson-Lamoureux Debate on Biological Origins,
ed. Phillip E. Johnson, Denis O. Lamoureux et al. (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing,
1999), 91-102;
Ø. A. Voie, "Biological Function and the Genetic Code Are Interdependent,"
Chaos, Solutions and Fractals 28 (2006): 1000-4.
On irreducibly complex biomolecular systems, see Michael J. Behe, Darwin's
Black Box, rev. ed. (London: The Free Press, 2006);
Michael J. Behe, "Design
in the Details: The Origin of Biomolecular Machines," in Darwinism, Design,
and Public Education, 287-302;
Behe, "The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis";
Behe, "Darwinism Gone Wild: Neither Sequence Similarity Nor Common Descent Address
a Claim of Intelligent Design,"
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/04/darwinism_gone_wild_neither_se.html;
Michael J. Behe and D. W. Snoke, "Simulating Evolution by Gene Duplication of Protein
Features that Require Multiple Amino Acid Residues," Protein Science 13
(2004): 2651-64;
William A. Dembski, No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity
Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001);
Stephen Griffith, "Irreducible Complexity,"
http://www.iscid.org/papers/Griffith_IrreducibleComplexity_052504.pdf;
Scott Minnich and Stephen C. Meyer, "Genetic Analysis of Coordinate Flagellar and
Type III Regulatory Circuits," Design and Nature 2: Comparing Design in Nature
with Science and Engineering, ed. M. W. Collins and C. A. Brebbia (WIT Press,
2004), 395-304;
William A. Dembski, "Still Spinning Just Fine: A Response to Ken
Miller,"
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2003.02.Miller_Response.htm;
William
A. Dembski, "Irreducible Complexity Revisited,"
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2004.01.Irred_Compl_Revisited.pdf;
Mike Gene, "Evolving the Bacterial Flagellum Through Mutation and Cooption," pts.
1-6, http://www.idthink.net/biot/index.html.
On the Cambrian Explosion, see Stephen C. Meyer, "The Origin of Biological Information
and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," Proceedings of the Biological Society
of Washington 117 (2004): 213-39;
Stephen C. Meyer, Marcus Ross, Paul
Nelson, and Paul Chien, "The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang," in Darwinism,
Design, And Public Education, 323-402.
[13]. Massimo Pigliucci, "The Provine-Scott Discussion at the
RET: Methodological vs. Philosophical Naturalism,"
http://www.rationalists.org/rc/1998_spring/provine-scott.htm;
cf. Peter S. Williams, "Reviewing the Reviewers: Pigliucci et al. on ‘Darwin's Rotweiller
and the Public Understanding of Science,'"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_pigliucci_reviewingreviewers.htm.
[14]. Massimo Pigliucci, "Design Yes, Intelligent No," Darwinism,
Design, And Public Education, 467.
[15]. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, 39.
[16]. William A. Dembski, Intelligent Design: The Bridge
between Science and Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999), 149.
[17]. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 6th ed.
(1872; New York: New York University Press, 1988), 154.
[18]. Richard Dawkins places the same bet when he acknowledges
that Darwin's remark about systems that cannot be built gradually "is valid and
very wise . . . his theory is indeed falsifiable . . . and he puts his finger on
one way in which it might be falsified" ("Universal Darwinism," in The Philosophy
of Biology, ed. David Hull and Michael Ruse [Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1998], 29.) However, he asserts that "not a single case is known to me of a complex
organ that could not have been formed by numerous slight [unguided] modifications.
I do not believe that such a case will ever be found" (The Blind Watchmaker
[London: Penguin, 2006], 91.) Nevertheless, he concedes, "If it is-it'll have to
be a really complex organ, and . . . you have to be sophisticated about what you
mean by ‘slight'-I shall cease to believe in Darwinism" (The Blind Watchmaker,
91). In The God Delusion (London: Bantam, 2006) Dawkins writes, "Maybe
there is something out there in nature that really does preclude, by its genuinely
irreducible complexity, the smooth gradient of Mount Improbable . . . if genuinely
irreducible complexity could be properly demonstrated, it would wreck Darwin's theory.
Darwin himself said as much . . . genuine irreducible complexity would wreck Darwin's
theory if it were ever found . . ." (125). Dawkins has a lot riding on the universal
negative bet that nothing in nature is irreducibly complex.
[19]. Richard Dawkins, "Darwin Triumphant," in A Devil's
Chaplain (London: Phoenix, 2004), 86.
[20]. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, 40.
[21]. Michael J. Behe, "Molecular Machines: Experimental Support
for the Design Inference," http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_mm92496.htm.
[22]. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, 265-6. This point is
also made by Robert C. Koons, "The Check Is in the Mail: Why Darwinism Fails to
Inspire Confidence," in Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing,
ed. William A. Dembski (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2004), 3-22.
[23]. Pigliucci, "Design Yes, Intelligent No," 471.
[24]. Ibid., 467.
[25]. For a critique of Dawkins' views, see:
Antony Latham, The Naked Emperor:Darwinism Exposed (London: Janus,
2005);
Alister E. McGrath, Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2004);
Alister E. McGrath, The Dawkins Delusion (London: SPCK, 2007);
Keith Ward, God, Chance and Necessity (Oxford: OneWorld, 1996);
Keith Ward, Is Religion Dangerous? (Oxford: Lion, 2006);
Peter S. Williams, I Wish I Could Believe in Meaning: A Response to Nihilism
(Southampton: Damaris, 2004);
Andrew Wilson, Deluded by Dawkins? A Christian Response to "The God Delusion"
(Eastbourne: Kingsway, 2007);
William Lane Craig, "Richard Dawkins' Argument for Atheism in the God Delusion,"
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5493;
Thomas Nagel, "The Fear of Religion," The New Republic Online,
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20061023ands=nagel102306;
Alvin Plantinga, "The Dawkins Confusion," Books and Culture, March/April
2007, http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/002/1.21.html;
Richard Swinburne, "Response to Richard Dawkins's Criticisms in The God Delusion,"
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~orie0087/framesetpdfs.shtml;
Peter S. Williams, "Darwin's Rottweiler and the Public Understanding of Scientism,"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_dawkinsfallacies.htm;
Peter S. Williams, "The Faith Based Dawkins,"
www.bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=166;
Peter S. Williams, "The God Delusion Deconstructed at Southampton University,"
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~pjb304/SUCU_talks/eternity/2007-02-15-PeteWilliams-TheGodDelusionDeconstructed.mp3;
Peter S. Williams, "The Big Bad Wolf, Theism and the Foundations of Intelligent
Design: A Review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion,"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_goddelusionreview.htm;
Peter S. Williams, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Dawkins' Failed Rebuttal
of Natural Theology,"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_goddelusionreview2.htm.
[26]. See Peter S. Williams, "The War on Science:
How Horizon Got Intelligent Design Wrong,"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_horizonreview.htm.
[27]. Richard Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable
(London: Viking, 1996), 4.
[28]. Ibid., 3.
[29]. Ibid.
[30]. Ibid.
[31]. Ibid.
[32]. Ibid.
[33]. Ibid.
[34]. Ibid.
[35]. Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 9.
[36]. Richard Dawkins, "Who Owns the Argument from Improbability?"
Free Inquiry, October/November 2004, 11-12.
[37]. Ibid.
[38]. Ibid. Discussing SETI in The God Delusion, Dawkins
notes: "It is a non-trivial question . . . what kind of signal would convince us
of its intelligent origin . . . Metronomic rhythms can be generated by many non-intelligent
phenomena. . . . Nothing simply rhythmic . . . would announce our intelligent presence
to the waiting universe" (71). The regular, specified but uncomplicated pattern
of a pulsar does not require an explanation in terms of design. Neither, of course,
does the irregular, unspecified complexity of static. So what sort of signal would
do the job? Dawkins notes: "Prime numbers are often mentioned as the recipe of choice,
since it is difficult to think of a purely physical process that could generate
them" (The God Delusion, 43). Hence Dawkins affirms that there is a type
of pattern, in principle discoverable by empirical, scientific investigation, for
which it is difficult to account in purely physical terms and which would rightly
trigger a design inference; and this is clearly a pattern exhibiting CSI.
[39]. Dawkins, "Who Owns the Argument from Improbability?" 11-12.
[40]. Ibid.
[41]. Ibid.
[42]. Ibid.
[43]. Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel, "Directed Panspermia,"
Icarus 19 (1973): 341-6.
[44]. Francis Crick, Life Itself (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1981).
[45]. I do not share this assumption. See William Lane Craig
and J. P. Moreland, eds., Naturalism: A Critical Analysis (London: Routledge,
2001); William Hasker, The Emergent Self (Cornell University Press, 1999);
Angus J. Menuge, Agents Under Fire: Materialism and the Rationality of Science
(Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004); J. P. Moreland, Scaling the Secular
City (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1987); Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper
Function (Oxford University Press, 1993); Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis's
Dangerous Idea (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003); Peter S. Williams,
The Case for Angels (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2002); Peter S. Williams,
I Wish I Could Believe in Meaning.
[46]. See Peter S. Williams, "Raelians Successfully Clone Naturalism,"
http://www.arn.org/docs/williams/pw_raeliansclonenaturalism.htm.
[47]. Dawkins, "Who Owns the Argument from Improbability?" 11-12.
[48]. Cf. Edge: The World Question Centre, "What Do
You Believe Is True Even Though You Cannot Prove It?" http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_easyprint.html.
[49]. Richard Dawkins, interview by Fi Glover, Broadcasting
House, BBC Radio 4, January 9, 2005. Cf. Peter S. Williams, "The Faith Based
Dawkins."
[50]. Contra Dawkins on this point, see Alvin Plantinga,
"The Dawkins Confusion"; Peter S. Williams, "The Big Bad Wolf, Theism and the Foundations
of Intelligent Design."
[51]. Behe, "The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis," 165.
[52]. Cf. William A. Dembski, ‘Science and Design" First
Things, October 1998,
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9810/dembski.html; Dembski, "SETI and Intelligent Design," December 2, 2005,
http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/541.
[53]. Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World (London:
Headline, 1996), 47.
[54]. Ibid.
[55]. See David John Owen, "The Face on Mars," http://www.dave.co.nz/space/mars/face.html.
[56]. Sagan, The Demon Haunted World, 56.
[57]. Ibid., emphasis added.
[58]. Ibid.
[59]. Keith Ward, God, Faith, and The New Millennium
(Oxford: OneWorld, 1999), 110.
[60]. Ibid, 118-19.
[61]. Ward advances the same sort of design argument in
God, Chance and Necessity.
[62]. Colin J. Humphreys, The Miracles of Exodus: A Scientist's
Discovery of the Extraordinary Natural Causes of the Biblical Stories (London:
Continuum, 2003), 339.
[63]. Ibid.
[64]. Ibid, 339-40.
[65]. This is an example of CSI being applied within the field
of historical apologetics. Another example would be arguments from fulfilled biblical
prophecy. Gregory Koukl draws this parallel in his article "Prophecy and People:
Both Designed to Fit,"
http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5508. See
also John A. Bloom, "Is Fulfilled Prophecy of Value for Scholarly Apologetics?"
Apologetics.com,
http://www.apologetics.com/default.jsp?bodycontent=/articles/biblical_apologetics/bloom-prophecy.html;
Robert C. Newman, "Fulfilled Prophecy as Miracle," in In Defence of Miracles:
A Comprehensive Case for God's Action in History, ed. R. Douglas Geivett and
Gary R. Habermas (Leicester: Apollos, 1997); Robert C. Newman, "On Fulfilled Prophecy
as Miracle" Philosophia Christi 3 (2001): 63-7; Hugh Ross, "Fulfilled Prophecy:
Evidence for the Reliability of the Bible,"
http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/prophecy.shtml.
[66]. See Denis Alexander, "Creation and Evolution: Hot Issues
for the Twenty-First Century,"
http://www.bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=193;
Peter
S. Williams, "Theistic Evolution and Intelligent Design in Dialogue,"
http://www.bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=216);
Denis Alexander, "Designs on Science,"
http://www.bethinking.org/resource.php?ID=260;
Peter S. Williams, "Intelligent Designs on Science: A Surreply to Denis Alexander's
Critique of Intelligent Design Theory,"
http://www.iscid.org/boards/ubb-get_topic-f-10-t-000107.html.
[67]. Denis Alexander, Rebuilding the Matrix (Oxford:
Lion, 2001), 448.
[68]. Norman L. Geisler, Miracles and the Modern Mind
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1992), 79-80, quoted in Alexander, Rebuilding the
Matrix, 448.
[69]. See Norman Geisler and Peter Bocchino, Unshakeable
Foundations: Contemporary Answers to Crucial Questions about the Christian Faith
(Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2001), chapter 6, "Questions about the Origin of Life."
[70]. Alexander, Rebuilding the Matrix, 421-2.
[71]. William Lane Craig, "Barrow and Tipler on the Anthropic
Principle vs Divine Design," British Journal of the Philosophy of Science
39 (1988): 389-95, quoted in Alexander, Rebuilding the Matrix, 420.
[72]. Alexander, Rebuilding the Matrix, 421.
[73]. Ibid.
[74]. Ibid., 422.
[75]. Ibid., 424.
[76]. Ibid.
[77]. Geisler, Miracles and the Modern Mind, 80, quoted
in Alexander, Rebuilding the Matrix, 448.
[78]. Denis Alexander, "Beyond Belief? Science and Religion
in the 21st Century," Southampton University, May 8, 2006.
[79]. Phillip E. Johnson, Defeating Darwinism by Opening
Minds (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1997), 114.
[80]. Cf. J. P. Moreland, Christianity and the Nature of
Science (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1989); J. P. Moreland, "Is Science a Threat
or Help to Faith?" http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/threat.html.
[81]. Basil Mitchell, The Justification of Religious Belief
(London: Macmillan, 1973), 8.
[82]. William A. Dembski, "Skepticism's Prospects for Unseating
Intelligent Design,"
http://www.designinference.com/documents/2002.06.Skepticism_CSICOhtm.
[83]. Cf. the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research group (PEAR),
http://skepdic.com/pear.html.