The Design Inference

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The book's cover

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 community^[1] including the The U.S. National Academy of Sciences,^[2] views intelligent design not as a valid scientific theory but as pseudoscience^[3] or junk science. ^[4]

1 Overview
2 Peer review controversy
3 References
4 External links
- 4.1 Pro-ID
- 4.2 Anti-ID

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 logicians and 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.[1] 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",[2] but this characterization of The Design Inference as a peer-reviewed scientific book has been dismissed by critics of intelligent design.

Despite the Institute's claim that work actually providing specific and detailed evidence for intelligent design has been published in scientific journals, one of the primary criticisms of the intelligent design movement is that they have failed to produce research papers supporting their position which appear in peer reviewed scientific journals.[3] Notably, in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District in December 2005, United States District Judge John E. Jones III in his ruling stated "A final indicator of how ID has failed to demonstrate scientific warrant is the complete absence of peer-reviewed publications supporting the theory." . . . "peer review involves scientists submitting a manuscript to a scientific journal in the field, [and] journal editors soliciting critical reviews from other experts in the field" . . . "evidence presented in this case demonstrates that ID is not supported by any peer-reviewed research, data or publications." [4]

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, the book claims that Dembski's criteria for detecting design are universal criteria, and therefore subsume the all fields of knowledge, explicitly including biology (as well as computer and information technology, among other fields). Although The Design Inference cites arguments in the evolution-creation controversy as one of the fields needing the type of theory it develops, the book itself does not give any substantive application of the theory in this area.

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 alternative [to Darwinism]," the book is touted as being "published by major secular university publishers." [5] (PDF file)

[edit] References

^ See: 1) List of scientific societies rejecting intelligent design 2) Kitzmiller v. Dover page 83. 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.
^ National Academy of Sciences, 1999 Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition
^ National 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
^ "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.