The Design Inference

Author(s)	William Dembski
Subject(s)	Intelligent Design
Genre(s)	Philosophy, probability theory, decision theory
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Publication date	September 13, 1998
Media type	Hardcover, paperback
ISBN	0521623871
Followed by	Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology

The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities (1998) 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. Dembski proposes what he calls an "explanatory filter," a method by which chance is ruled out when a highly improbable event conforms to a discernible pattern that is given independently of the event itself. This pattern is Dembski's concept of specified complexity.

The filter states that if the thing being examined cannot be explained by a law, and it is too statistically unlikely to be explained by chance, and contains an independently given^{[by whom?]} pattern, then it may be attributed to design. Dembski says his concept is useful to those concerned with detecting design: forensic scientists, detectives, insurance fraud investigators, cryptographers, and SETI investigators, as well theologians and others who argue for the concepts of the fine-tuned universe and the Anthropic Principle.

This assertion is disputed by scientists from the SETI Institute and other fields, who state that these fields do not find application for Dembski's explanatory filter and the related concept of specified complexity, but rather upon more prosaic methods and (in the case of SETI) a search for artificial simplicity.^[1][2] Dembski asserts 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. Scientists generally reject this position, arguing that it is not testable and is therefore unscientific.^[3][4]

Reception

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 by the Discovery Institute as offering "a powerful alternative [to Darwinism]," the book is touted as being "published by major secular university publishers."^[5]

In 2000, biologist Massimo Pigliucci criticized The Design Inference in BioScience writing, "Too bad he missed the solution to this riddle, which has been proposed several times during the last few centuries, most prominently (and in various fashions) by Hume (1779), Darwin (1859), and Jacques Monod (1971). According to these thinkers, if a given phenomenon occurs with low probability and also conforms to a pre-specified pattern, then there are two possible conclusions: intelligent design (this concept is synonymous with human intervention) or necessity, which can be caused by a nonrandom, deterministic force such as natural selection." Pigliucci wrote "Unfortunately, Cambridge University Press has offered a respectable platform for Dembski to mount his attack on 'materialist science'--which, of course, includes evolution. My hope is that scientists will not dismiss this book as just another craze originating in the intellectual backwaters of America. Neocreationism should be a call to arms for the science community. The battle is already raging, and scientists and educators are still not sure if they should even bother paying attention."^[6]

Marine biologist Wesley R. Elsberry and critic of creationism reviewed the book in 1999. Elsberry described the book as "...a slim and scholarly volume, as one expects from a distinguished academic press [with] clear writing, illustrative examples, and cogent argumentation. The work, though, is motivated and informed by an anti-evolutionary impulse, and its flaws appear to follow from the need to achieve an anti-evolutionary aim. The anti-evolutionary bent is not as overt here, though, as it is in other works by Dembski". Elsberry criticizes the book for using a definition of "design" as what is left over after chance and regularity have been eliminated, and for using an argument that excludes natural selection a prior in order to conclude the existence of a designer when in fact natural selection fits Dembski's argument just as easily. Elsberry concludes:

The Design Inference is a work with great significance for the group of anti-evolutionists who have embraced "intelligent design" as their organizing principle. TDI is supposed to establish the theoretical foundation for all the rest of the movement. My judgment is that it fails to lay a solid foundation. There are flaws and cracks that can admit the entry of naturalistic causes into the pool of "designed" events. It is unfortunate that Dembski's focus is the establishment of "intelligent design" as an anti-evolutionary alternative, for his insights into elimination of chance hypotheses would appear to have legitimate application to various outstanding research questions, such as resolving certain issues in animal cognition and intelligence. Despite Dembski's commentary in his First Things article, there appears to be no justification for the claim that biologists must now admit design (in its old, agency-laden sense) into biological explanation to any greater degree than it is already used.

—Elsberry, 1999^[7]

References

1. ^ Shostak, S (2005-12-01). "SETI and Intelligent Design". SETI Institute. http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_intelligentdesign_051201.html. Retrieved 2010-08-31. 
2. ^ Elsberry, WR; Shallit J. "Information Theory, Evolutionary Computation, and Dembski's "Complex Specified Information"". Talk.reason. http://www.talkreason.org/articles/eandsdembski.pdf. 
3. ^ "An intelligently designed response". Nature Methods 4 (12): 983–912. 2007. doi:10.1038/nmeth1207-983.  edit
4. ^ Mu, D (2005). "Trojan Horse or Legitimate Science" (pdf). Harvard Science Review 19 (1): 22–25. http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~hsr/fall2005/mu.pdf. 
5. ^ Wedge document
6. ^ Pigliucci, M. (2000). "Chance, necessity, and the war against science". BioScience 50: 79–72. doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2000)050[0079:CNATWA]2.3.CO;2.  edit
7. ^ Elsberry, Wesley R (March–April 1999). "Review: The Design Inference". Reports of the National Center for Science Education 19 (2): 32–35. http://ncse.com/rncse/19/2/review-design-inference. Retrieved 2011-04-24. 

External links

• The Design Inference Dembski's website
• How Not to Detect Design (pdf file) by Branden Fitelson, Christopher Stephens and Elliott Sober.
  • Dembski's reply to Fitelson
• 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