William A. Dembski: Difference between revisions

{{short description|American mathematician and proponent of intelligent design}}

{{Infobox personphilosopher

| image_size = 160px

| known_for = [[Intelligent design]],<br />[[specifiedSpecified complexity]]

| education = [[University of Illinois at Chicago]] ([[B.A.Bachelor of Arts|BA]], [[M.S.|MS]], [[PhD]])<br>{{nowrap|[[University of Chicago]] ([[Master of Science|SMMS]], [[PhD]])}}<br>[[Princeton Theological Seminary]] ([[Master of Divinity|MDiv]])

| notable_works = ''[[The Design Inference]]'' (1998)

'''William Albert Dembski''' (born July 18, 1960) is an American [[mathematician]], [[philosopher]] and [[theologian]]. He was a proponent of [[intelligent design]] (ID) [[pseudoscience]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Boudry |first1=Maarten |author-link1=Maarten Boudry |last2=Blancke |first2=Stefaan |last3=Braeckman |first3=Johan |author-link3=Johan Braeckman |date=December 2010 |title=Irreducible Incoherence and Intelligent Design: A Look into the Conceptual Toolbox of a Pseudoscience |journal=[[The Quarterly Review of Biology]] |volume=85 |issue=4 |pages=473–482 |doi=10.1086/656904 |pmid=21243965|url=https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/952482/file/6828579.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/952482/file/6828579.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |hdl=1854/LU-952482 |s2cid=27218269 |hdl-access=free }} Article available from [https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/952482 Universiteit Gent]</ref> specifically the concept of [[specified complexity]], and was a senior fellow of the [[Discovery Institute]]'s [[Center for Science and Culture]] (CSC).<ref name="Dembski_SF">{{cite web |url=http://www.discovery.org/p/32 |title=William A. Dembski, Senior Fellow - CSC |website=[[Discovery Institute]] |publisher=Discovery Institute |location=Seattle, WA |access-date=January 10, 2014 |quote=A mathematician and philosopher, William A. Dembski is Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.}}</ref> On September 23, 2016, he officially retired from intelligent design, resigning all his "formal associations with the ID community, including [his] Discovery Institute fellowship of 20 years".<ref name="Official_Retirement">{{cite web |url=https://billdembski.com/personal/official-retirement-from-intelligent-design/ |title=Official Retirement from Intelligent Design |date=September 23, 2016 |access-date=September 26, 2016}}</ref> A February 2021 interview in the CSC's blog ''[[Evolution News]]'' announced "his return to the intelligent design arena".<ref name="Evolution News 2021">{{cite web | title=William Dembski: Why I'm Returning to the Front Lines of Intelligent Design | website=Evolution News | date=16 February 2021 | url=https://evolutionnews.org/2021/02/william-dembski-why-im-returning-to-the-front-lines-of-intelligent-design/ | access-date=30 June 2021}}</ref>

In 2012, he taught as the ''Phillip E. Johnson Research Professor of Science and Culture'' at the [[Southern Evangelical Seminary]] in [[Matthews, North Carolina]], near [[Charlotte, North Carolina|Charlotte]].<ref name="SEC_Faculty">{{cite web |url=http://ses.edu/academics/faculty/william-dembski |title=William Dembski |website=[[Southern Evangelical Seminary]] |publisher=Southern Evangelical Seminary |location=Matthews, NC |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130703104257/http://ses.edu/academics/faculty/william-dembski |archive-date=July 3, 2013 |access-date=January 10, 2014}}</ref>

Intelligent design is the argument that an intelligent cause is responsible for the complexity of life and that one can detect that cause [[Empiricism|empirically]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_explfilter.htm |title=The Explanatory Filter: A three-part filter for understanding how to separate and identify cause from intelligent design |last=Dembski |first=William A. |year=1996 |type="An excerpt from a paper presented at the [[Faculty Commons#Wedge strategy|1996 Mere Creation conference]], originally titled 'Redesigning Science.'" |access-date=September 27, 2009 }} See Chapter 4 of ''Mere Creation'' (1998), [https://books.google.com/books?id=uD6KDrWLSu0C&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93#v=onepage&q&f=false "Redesigning Science"].

*{{cite news |last=Heeren |first=Fred |url=http://www.spectator.org/archives/0011TAS/heeren0011.htm |title=The Lynching of Bill Dembski |date=November 2000 |work=[[The American Spectator]] |location=Arlington, VA |publisher=American Spectator Foundation |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20001116075653/http://www.spectator.org/archives/0011TAS/heeren0011.htm |archive-date=November 16, 2000 |access-date=September 27, 2009 }}</ref> Dembski postulated that [[probability theory]] can be used to prove [[irreducible complexity]] (IC) and what he called "[[specified complexity]]."<ref name="Dembsky1999">[[#Dembski 1999|Dembski 1999]], pp. 10, 107</ref> The scientific community sees intelligent design—and Dembski's concept of specified complexity—as a form of [[creationism]] attempting to portray itself as science.<ref>[[#Young & Edis 2004|Young & Edis 2004]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=hYLKdtlVeQgC&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false pp. 1–19], [https://books.google.com/books?id=hYLKdtlVeQgC&pg=PA107#v=onepage&q&f=false 107–138], [https://books.google.com/books?id=hYLKdtlVeQgC&pg=PA185#v=onepage&q&f=false 185–196]</ref>

== Biography ==

Dembski was born in [[Chicago|Chicago, Illinois]], the only child of Catholic parents,. hisHis mother was an [[art dealer]] and his father was a college professor and lecturer. His fatherwho held a [[Doctor of Science|D.Sc.]] in [[biology]] from the [[University of Erlangen-Nuremberg]] and taught [[evolutionary biology]];. whileWhile growing up, Dembski was neither particularly religious nor did he question the [[Evolution|theory of evolution]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_idcomingclean.htm |title=Intelligent Design Coming Clean |last=Dembski |first=William A. |date=November 17, 2000 |website=[[Access Research Network]] |location=Colorado Springs, CO |access-date=August 11, 2010}}</ref><ref name="InGod">{{cite news |last=Kern |first=Lauren |date=December 14, 2000 |title=In God's Country |url=http://www.houstonpress.com/2000-12-14/news/in-god-s-country/full/ |newspaper=[[Houston Press]] |location=Houston, TX |publisher=[[Voice Media Group]] |oclc=29800759 |access-date=August 11, 2010}}</ref> He attended an all-male Catholic preparatory school in Chicago. Dembski finished high school a year early, excelling in math and finishing a [[calculus]] course in one summer. After high school he attended the [[University of Chicago]]. There, Dembski experienced educational and personal difficulties, struggling with the advanced courses and finding the unfamiliar social milieu of college challenging. Dembski dropped out of school and worked at his mother's art business while reading works on creationism and the [[Bible]]. Finding the creationist works interesting in their challenge of evolution but their literal interpretations lacking, Dembski returned to school at the [[University of Illinois at Chicago]], studying [[statistics]].<ref name="InGod" />

Former UC Berkeley law school professor [[Phillip E. Johnson]]'s book ''[[Darwin on Trial]]'' (1991) attracted a group of scholars<ref>[[#Forrest & Gross 2004|Forrest & Gross 2004]], [https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=aP4RxWZceNkC&oi=fnd&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 18]</ref> who shared his view that the exclusion of [[supernatural]] explanations by the [[scientific method]] was unfair and had led to the ''[[Edwards v. Aguillard]]'' ruling that teaching [[creation science]] in [[State school#United States|public schools]] was unconstitutional. Dembski was part of that group at a symposium at [[Southern Methodist University]] in [[Dallas|Dallas, Texas]], in March 1992, before they came to call themselves "[[wedge strategy|The Wedge]]."<ref name="bfwedge">[[#Forrest 2001|Forrest 2001]]</ref>

President Sloan asked Dembski to withdraw his press release, but Dembski refused, accusing the university of "intellectual [[McCarthyism]]" (borrowing a phrase that Sloan himself had used when they first tried to dissolve the center). He declared that the university's action had been taken "in the utmost of bad faith ... thereby providing the fig leaf of justification for my removal."<ref name="Dembski_PR-2000-10-19">{{cite web |url=http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/metanews_20001020_wad.txt |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020628233524/http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/metanews_20001020_wad.txt |url-status=usurped |archive-date=June 28, 2002 |title=Statement by William Dembski on His Removal as Director of the Michael Polanyi Center at Baylor University |last=Dembski |first=William A. |date=October 19, 2000 |access-date=January 10, 2014}}</ref> Professor Michael Beaty, director of the Institute for Faith and Learning, said that Dembski's remarks violated the spirit of cooperation that the committee had advocated and stated that "Dr. Dembski's actions after the release of the report compromised his ability to serve as director."<ref name="Brumley_PR-2000-10-19">{{cite web |url=http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/metanews_20001019_brumley.txt |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020628233618/http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/metanews_20001019_brumley.txt |url-status=usurped |archive-date=June 28, 2002 |title=Dembski relieved of duties as Polanyi Center Director |last=Brumley |first=Larry |date=October 19, 2000 |access-date=January 10, 2014}}</ref> Dembski was removed as the center's director, although he remained an associate research professor until May 2005. He was not asked to teach any courses in that time and instead worked from home, writing books and speaking around the country. "In a sense, Baylor did me a favor," he said. "I had a five-year sabbatical."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/10/the-pseudo-scie.html |title=The Pseudo-Science Amicus Brief in ''Kitzmiller'' |last=Sandefur |first=Timothy |date=October 4, 2005 |website=[[The Panda's Thumb (blog)|The Panda's Thumb]] |publisher=The TalkOrigins Foundation, Inc. |location=Houston, TX |type=Blog |access-date=July 26, 2013}}</ref>

Dembski frequently gives public talks, principally to religious, pro-ID groups, and creationists. [[Barbara Forrest]] and [[Paul R. Gross]] noted that Dembski has not been hesitant in associating with young Earth creationists, such as attending conferences with [[Carl Baugh]].<ref>[[#Forrest & Gross 2004|Forrest & Gross 2004]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=aP4RxWZceNkC&pg=PA293#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 293]</ref> His lectures have been met with criticism: a presentation he made to the [[University of Oklahoma]] was funded by Trinity Baptist Church in [[Norman, Oklahoma]], as a "gospel investment" but university faculty instructors criticised Dembski's presentation as half-hearted, lackluster, containing numerous errors and distortions, lacking positive evidence for intelligent design, and for evading questions.<ref name="NCSE-DembskiLecture">{{cite journal |last=Dickson-LaPrade |first=Daniel |date=September–December 2007 |title=A Victory over 'Intelligent Design' in Oklahoma |url=http://ncse.com/rncse/27/5-6/victory-over-intelligent-design-oklahoma |journal=Reports of the National Center for Science Education |volume=24 |issue=5–6 |pages=7–8 |issn=2158-818X |access-date=February 19, 2007}}</ref>

Mathematician [[Mark Perakh]] has stated he believes Dembski overemphasizes his own self-importance in his writing.<ref>[[#Forrest & Gross 2004|Forrest & Gross 2004]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=aP4RxWZceNkC&pg=PA118#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 118]</ref>

Since Shallit's statement, Dembski has (as of May 2010) published four peer-reviewed papers in [[information theory]] venues associated with the [[IEEE]] professional society. The papers deal with ''active information'' in the context of [[Search algorithm|search]]es for solutions to problems. Quantified active information is introduced in "Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success."<ref>[[#Dembski & Marks 2009a|Dembski & Marks 2009a]]</ref> A second paper, "Evolutionary Synthesis of Nand Logic: Dissecting a Digital Organism,"<ref>[[#Ewert, Dembski & Marks 2009|Ewert, Dembski & Marks 2009]]</ref> claims to deconstruct the evolution simulation [[Avida (software)|Avida]] by uncovering the sources of active information in the program. A third paper<ref>[[#Dembski & Marks 2009b|Dembski & Marks 2009b]]</ref> discusses the role of [[Jacob Bernoulli]]'s ''[[principle of indifference]]'' in the analysis of evolution. The most recent paper, "Efficient Per Query Information Extraction from a Hamming Oracle,"<ref>[[#Ewert, Montañez, Dembski & Marks 2010|Ewert, Montañez, Dembski & Marks 2010]]</ref> calculates the performance of various search algorithms which use the [[Hamming distance]] to search for a single string of a certain length in the set of all strings of this length.

Dembski objects to the presence of the theory of evolution in a variety of disciplines, presenting intelligent design as an alternative to reductionist materialism that gives a sense of purpose that the unguided evolutionary process lacks<ref>{{cite news |last=Pike |first=Deidre |date=February 24, 2005 |title=Evolution Revolution |url=http://archives.lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2005/02/24/cover_story/cover.txt |work=Las Vegas City Life |location=Las Vegas, NV |publisher=[[Stephens Media (newspapers)|Stephens Media LLC]] |access-date=August 9, 2010}}</ref> and the ultimate significance of ID is its success in undermining materialism and [[naturalism (philosophy)|naturalism]].<ref name="Robinson" /> Dembski has also stated that ID has little chance as a serious [[scientific theory]] as long as [[methodological naturalism]] is the basis for science.<ref>[[#Dembski 1995|Dembski 1995]]</ref> Although intelligent design proponents (including Dembski) have made little apparent effort to publish peer-reviewed scientific research to support their hypotheses, in recent years they have made vigorous efforts to promote the teaching of intelligent design in schools.<ref name="kitzmillerpg">''Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District'', [[s:Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District/4:Whether ID Is Science|pp. 63–139]]</ref> Dembski is a strong supporter of this drive as a means of making young people more receptive to intelligent design, and said he wants "to see intelligent design flourish as a scientific research program" among a "new generation of scholars" willing to consider the theory and textbooks that include it.<ref>[[#Forrest & Gross 2004|Forrest & Gross 2004]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=aP4RxWZceNkC&pg=PA301#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 301]</ref>

Specified complexity is ana concept which Dembski has proposed and used in his works promoting intelligent design, an argument intended to give a formal definition of patterns that are both specified and complex. He claims it is a reliable marker of design by an intelligent agent, a central concept of intelligent design, as opposed to natural selection in modern evolutionary theory. The concept of specified complexity is widely regarded as mathematically unsound and has not been the basis for further independent work in information theory, [[complexity theory and organizations|complexity theory]], or biology.<ref>{{cite web |last=Baldwin |first=Rich |url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/dembski.html |title=Information Theory and Creationism: William Dembski |date=July 14, 2005 |website=TalkOrigins Archive |publisher=The TalkOrigins Foundation, Inc. |location=Houston, TX |access-date=January 10, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.talkreason.org/articles/newmath.cfm |title=Dembski 'displaces Darwinism' mathematically – or does he? |last=Perakh |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Perakh |date=March 18, 2005 |website=Talk Reason |access-date=January 10, 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Rosenhouse |first=Jason |date=Fall 2001 |title=How Anti-Evolutionists Abuse Mathematics |url=http://educ.jmu.edu/~rosenhjd/sewell.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://educ.jmu.edu/~rosenhjd/sewell.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |journal=[[The Mathematical Intelligencer]] |volume=23 |issue=4 |pages=3–8 |oclc=3526661 |access-date=January 10, 2014|doi=10.1007/bf03024593|s2cid=189888286 }}</ref> Specified complexity is one of the two main arguments used by intelligent design proponents, the other being irreducible complexity.

Dembski once took his family to a meeting conducted by [[Todd Bentley]], a [[Faith healing|faith healer]], in hopes of receiving a "miraculous healing" for his son, who is autistic.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Kofman |first1=Jeffrey |author-link1=Jeffrey Kofman |last2=Yiu |first2=Karson |last3=Brennan |first3=Nicholas |date=July 9, 2008 |title=Thousands Flock to Revival in Search of Miracles |url=https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/FaithMatters/story?id=5338963&page=1 |work=[[ABC News (United States)|ABC News]] |access-date=January 10, 2014}}</ref><ref name="faithhealing">{{cite news |last=Dembski |first=William A. |date=July 11, 2008 |title=FIRST-PERSON: Faith & healing – Where's the evidence? |url=http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=28460 |work=Baptist Press |location=Nashville, TN |publisher=Southern Baptist Convention |access-date=May 17, 2008}}</ref> In an article for the ''Baptist Press'' he recalled disappointment with the nature of the meeting and with the prevention of his son and other attendees from joining those in wheelchairs who were selected to receive prayer. He then concluded, "Minimal time was given to healing, though plenty was devoted to assaulting our senses with blaring insipid music and even to Bentley promoting and selling his own products (books and CDs)." He wrote that he did not regret the trip and called it an "education," which showed "how easily religion can be abused, in this case to exploit our family."<ref name="faithhealing" />

* {{cite conference |url=http://evoinfo.org/papers/2009_BernoullisPrinciple.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://evoinfo.org/papers/2009_BernoullisPrinciple.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Bernoulli's Principle of Insufficient Reason and Conservation of Information in Computer Search |last1=Dembski |first1=William A. |last2=Marks II |first2=Robert J. |journal=Systems, Man and Cybernetics, IEEE International Conference on |date=October 11–14, 2009 |conference=Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics |publisher=IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society |location=San Antonio, TX |pages=2647–2652 |isbn=978-1-4244-2794-9 |issn=1062-922X |doi=10.1109/ICSMC.2009.5346119 |access-date=January 10, 2014 |ref=Dembski & Marks 2009b}}

* {{cite conference |url=http://evoinfo.org/papers/2009_EvolutionarySynthesis.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://evoinfo.org/papers/2009_EvolutionarySynthesis.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Evolutionary Synthesis of Nand Logic: Dissecting a Digital Organism |last1=Ewert |first1=Winston |last2=Dembski |first2=William A. |last3=Marks II |first3=Robert J. |journal=Systems, Man and Cybernetics, IEEE International Conference on |date=October 11–14, 2009 |conference=Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics |publisher=IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society |location=San Antonio, TX |pages=3047–3053 |isbn=978-1-4244-2794-9 |issn=1062-922X |doi=10.1109/ICSMC.2009.5345941 |access-date=January 10, 2014 |ref=Ewert, Dembski & Marks 2009}}

[[Category:21st-century American theologiansnon-fiction writers]]

[[Category:American Evangelical writers]]