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No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence
Darwin's greatest accomplishment was to show how life might be explained as the result of natural selection. But does Darwin's theory mean that life was unintended? William A. Dembski argues that it does not. In this book Dembski extends his theory of intelligent design. Building on his earlier work in The Design Inference (Cambridge, 1998), he defends that life must be the product of intelligent design. Critics of Dembski's work have argued that evolutionary algorithms show that life can be explained apart from intelligence. But by employing powerful recent results from the No Free Lunch Theory, Dembski addresses and decisively refutes such claims. As the leading proponent of intelligent design, Dembski reveals a designer capable of originating the complexity and specificity found throughout the cosmos. Scientists and theologians alike will find this book of interest as it brings the question of creation firmly into the realm of scientific debate.
432 pages, Paperback
First published December 18, 2001
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123 people want to read
About the author
William A. Dembski
51 books119 followersA mathematician and philosopher, Dr. William Dembski has taught at Northwestern University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas. He has done postdoctoral work in mathematics at MIT, in physics at the University of Chicago, and in computer science at Princeton University. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago where he earned a B.A. in psychology, an M.S. in statistics, and a Ph.D. in philosophy, he also received a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1988 and a master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1996. He has held National Science Foundation graduate and postdoctoral fellowships. He is the recipient of a $100,000 Templeton research grant. In 2005 he received Texas A&M’s Trotter Prize.
Dr. Dembski has published articles in mathematics, engineering, philosophy, and theology journals and is the author/editor of over twenty books.
His most comprehensive treatment of intelligent design to date, co-authored with Jonathan Wells, is titled The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems.
As interest in intelligent design has grown in the wider culture, Dr. Dembski has assumed the role of public intellectual. In addition to lecturing around the world at colleges and universities, he is frequently interviewed on the radio and television. His work has been cited in numerous newspaper and magazine articles, including three front page stories in the New York Times as well as the August 15, 2005 Time magazine cover story on intelligent design. He has appeared on the BBC, NPR (Diane Rehm, etc.), PBS (Inside the Law with Jack Ford; Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson), CSPAN2, CNN, Fox News, ABC Nightline, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Dr. Dembski has published articles in mathematics, engineering, philosophy, and theology journals and is the author/editor of over twenty books.
His most comprehensive treatment of intelligent design to date, co-authored with Jonathan Wells, is titled The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems.
As interest in intelligent design has grown in the wider culture, Dr. Dembski has assumed the role of public intellectual. In addition to lecturing around the world at colleges and universities, he is frequently interviewed on the radio and television. His work has been cited in numerous newspaper and magazine articles, including three front page stories in the New York Times as well as the August 15, 2005 Time magazine cover story on intelligent design. He has appeared on the BBC, NPR (Diane Rehm, etc.), PBS (Inside the Law with Jack Ford; Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson), CSPAN2, CNN, Fox News, ABC Nightline, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 3, 2024
A DEVELOPMENT OF DEMBSKI’S “THE DESIGN INFERENCE”
William Albert Dembski (born 1960) is a key figure in the "Intelligent Design" movement, who is a former professor at the Southern Evangelical Seminary and a former senior fellow of the Discovery Institute.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2002 book, “Is it really the case… that the directive organization of living beings can be explained without recourse to a designer? And would employing a designer in biological explanations necessarily take us out of the realm of science? The purpose of this book is to answer these two questions. The title of this book… refers to a collection of mathematical theorems proved in the past five years about evolutionary algorithms… evolutionary algorithms are incapable of providing a computational justification for the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection the random mutation as the primary creative force in biology. The subtitle… refers to that form of information… that is increasingly coming to be regarded as a reliable empirical marker of purpose, intelligence, and design.” (Pg. xii-xiii)
In the first chapter, he explains, “In this book I will argue that design is a legitimate and fundamental mode of scientific explanation, on a par with chance and necessity… Design, as I develop it, cuts both ways and might just as well be used to empty such religious doctrines of empirical content by clarifying the superfluity of design in nature… My aim is not to find design in any one place or to gain ideological mileage, but to open up possibilities for finding design as well as for shutting it down.” (Pg. 3)
He explains, “When intelligent agents act, they leave behind a characteristic trademark or signature---what I define as ‘specified complexity.’ The complexity-specification criterion detects design by identifying this trademark of designed objects.” (Pg. 6)
He argues, “My own view is that our understanding of physics needs to proceed considerably further before we can establish convincingly that ours is a universe that optimally facilitates the formation of black holes… [Lee] Smolin’s theory, in positing that black holes generate universes, would explain why we are in a universe that optimally facilitates for formation of black holes. But it is not as though we would ever have independent evidence for Smolin’s theory, say by looking inside a black hole and seeing whether there is a universe in it. Of all the objects in space… black holes divulge the least amount of information about themselves.” (Pg. 90)
He states, “CSI [Complex Specified Complexity] makes clear the connection between design and information theory. To infer design by means of the complexity-specification criterion… is equivalent to detect complex specified information… For an event to satisfy the complexity-specification criterion, it must first of all be contingent. But contingency… is the chief characteristic of information… What’s more for a contingent event in conjunction with a specification to constitute complex specified information. It follows that the complexity-specification criterion attributes design if and only if it detects CSI.” (Pg. 145)
He asserts, “How, then, does one generate specified complexity? There is only one known generator of specified complexity, and that is intelligence. In every case where we know the causal history underlying an instance of specified complexity, an intelligent agent was involved…. Thus, to claim that natural laws… can produce specified complexity is to commit a category mistake. It is to attribute to laws something they are intrinsically incapable of delivering. Indeed, all our evidence points to intelligence as the sole source for specified complexity.” (Pg. 207)
He points out, “The problem with trying to explain an irreducibly complex system like the bacterial flagellum as a patchwork is that it requires multiple coordinated exaptations. It is not just that one thing evolves for one function… and then through some quick and dirty modification gets used for some completely different function. It is that multiple protein parts from different functional systems have to break free and then coalesce to form a new integrated system… there is no reason to view such sheer possibilities as live possibilities.” (Pg. 255)
He notes, “What does an ID-based curriculum teach actually happened in the course of biological evolution?... an ID-based curriculum will teach Darwinian theory, both the evidence that supports it as well as the countervailing evidence. Such a curriculum will also teach progress to date on the research problems specific to a design-theoretic research program… In particular… it will teach what at the time is the best scientific account of the pattern of evolution consistent with specified complexity not being a free lunch… Naturalistic mechanisms… are in principle incapable or generating specified complexity. Consequently, whenever evolution exhibits a net increase in specified complexity, that net increase must be sought in factors other than naturalistic mechanisms.” (Pg. 316-317)
He summarizes, “a design-theoretic research program reconceptualizes evolutionary biology in information-theoretic terms. An evolutionary biology thoroughly cognizant of information theory is one whose chief task is to trace informational pathways… Detailed informational pathways need to be explicitly exhibited---just-so stories will not do. Moreover, informational pathways need to conform to biological reality, and not to the virtual reality residing in a computer. Finally, empirical evidence… must decide whether an informational pathway exists at all… In this reconceptualization of evolutionary biology, many low-level facts of current evolutionary biology will remain unchanged.” (Pg. 324)
He says, “Is intelligent design falsifiable? Is Darwinism falsifiable? Yes to the first question, no to the second. Intelligent design is eminently falsifiable. Specified complexity in general and irreducible complexity in biology are within the theory of intelligent design the key markers of intelligent agency. If it could be shown that biological systems like the bacterial flagellum … could have been formed by a gradual Darwinian process… then intelligent design would be falsified on the general grounds that one does not invoke intelligent causes when purely natural causes will do.” (Pg. 357) Later, he adds, “there is no merit to Eugenie Scott’s claim that intelligent design is untestable and has not put forward any ‘testable models.’” (Pg. 365)
He concludes, “The big question confronting science is whether design can be gotten on the cheap or must be paid for in kind. In this book I have argued that design admits no bargains. Specified complexity, that key indicator of design, has but one known source, namely, intelligence. Specified complexity cannot be purchased without it… It is time to come clean about what natural causes can and cannot accomplish. They cannot substitute for intelligent causes. They are not a free lunch.” (Pg. 371)
This book will be of great interest to those seriously studying Intelligent Design, and similar science/religion issues.
William Albert Dembski (born 1960) is a key figure in the "Intelligent Design" movement, who is a former professor at the Southern Evangelical Seminary and a former senior fellow of the Discovery Institute.
He wrote in the Preface to this 2002 book, “Is it really the case… that the directive organization of living beings can be explained without recourse to a designer? And would employing a designer in biological explanations necessarily take us out of the realm of science? The purpose of this book is to answer these two questions. The title of this book… refers to a collection of mathematical theorems proved in the past five years about evolutionary algorithms… evolutionary algorithms are incapable of providing a computational justification for the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection the random mutation as the primary creative force in biology. The subtitle… refers to that form of information… that is increasingly coming to be regarded as a reliable empirical marker of purpose, intelligence, and design.” (Pg. xii-xiii)
In the first chapter, he explains, “In this book I will argue that design is a legitimate and fundamental mode of scientific explanation, on a par with chance and necessity… Design, as I develop it, cuts both ways and might just as well be used to empty such religious doctrines of empirical content by clarifying the superfluity of design in nature… My aim is not to find design in any one place or to gain ideological mileage, but to open up possibilities for finding design as well as for shutting it down.” (Pg. 3)
He explains, “When intelligent agents act, they leave behind a characteristic trademark or signature---what I define as ‘specified complexity.’ The complexity-specification criterion detects design by identifying this trademark of designed objects.” (Pg. 6)
He argues, “My own view is that our understanding of physics needs to proceed considerably further before we can establish convincingly that ours is a universe that optimally facilitates the formation of black holes… [Lee] Smolin’s theory, in positing that black holes generate universes, would explain why we are in a universe that optimally facilitates for formation of black holes. But it is not as though we would ever have independent evidence for Smolin’s theory, say by looking inside a black hole and seeing whether there is a universe in it. Of all the objects in space… black holes divulge the least amount of information about themselves.” (Pg. 90)
He states, “CSI [Complex Specified Complexity] makes clear the connection between design and information theory. To infer design by means of the complexity-specification criterion… is equivalent to detect complex specified information… For an event to satisfy the complexity-specification criterion, it must first of all be contingent. But contingency… is the chief characteristic of information… What’s more for a contingent event in conjunction with a specification to constitute complex specified information. It follows that the complexity-specification criterion attributes design if and only if it detects CSI.” (Pg. 145)
He asserts, “How, then, does one generate specified complexity? There is only one known generator of specified complexity, and that is intelligence. In every case where we know the causal history underlying an instance of specified complexity, an intelligent agent was involved…. Thus, to claim that natural laws… can produce specified complexity is to commit a category mistake. It is to attribute to laws something they are intrinsically incapable of delivering. Indeed, all our evidence points to intelligence as the sole source for specified complexity.” (Pg. 207)
He points out, “The problem with trying to explain an irreducibly complex system like the bacterial flagellum as a patchwork is that it requires multiple coordinated exaptations. It is not just that one thing evolves for one function… and then through some quick and dirty modification gets used for some completely different function. It is that multiple protein parts from different functional systems have to break free and then coalesce to form a new integrated system… there is no reason to view such sheer possibilities as live possibilities.” (Pg. 255)
He notes, “What does an ID-based curriculum teach actually happened in the course of biological evolution?... an ID-based curriculum will teach Darwinian theory, both the evidence that supports it as well as the countervailing evidence. Such a curriculum will also teach progress to date on the research problems specific to a design-theoretic research program… In particular… it will teach what at the time is the best scientific account of the pattern of evolution consistent with specified complexity not being a free lunch… Naturalistic mechanisms… are in principle incapable or generating specified complexity. Consequently, whenever evolution exhibits a net increase in specified complexity, that net increase must be sought in factors other than naturalistic mechanisms.” (Pg. 316-317)
He summarizes, “a design-theoretic research program reconceptualizes evolutionary biology in information-theoretic terms. An evolutionary biology thoroughly cognizant of information theory is one whose chief task is to trace informational pathways… Detailed informational pathways need to be explicitly exhibited---just-so stories will not do. Moreover, informational pathways need to conform to biological reality, and not to the virtual reality residing in a computer. Finally, empirical evidence… must decide whether an informational pathway exists at all… In this reconceptualization of evolutionary biology, many low-level facts of current evolutionary biology will remain unchanged.” (Pg. 324)
He says, “Is intelligent design falsifiable? Is Darwinism falsifiable? Yes to the first question, no to the second. Intelligent design is eminently falsifiable. Specified complexity in general and irreducible complexity in biology are within the theory of intelligent design the key markers of intelligent agency. If it could be shown that biological systems like the bacterial flagellum … could have been formed by a gradual Darwinian process… then intelligent design would be falsified on the general grounds that one does not invoke intelligent causes when purely natural causes will do.” (Pg. 357) Later, he adds, “there is no merit to Eugenie Scott’s claim that intelligent design is untestable and has not put forward any ‘testable models.’” (Pg. 365)
He concludes, “The big question confronting science is whether design can be gotten on the cheap or must be paid for in kind. In this book I have argued that design admits no bargains. Specified complexity, that key indicator of design, has but one known source, namely, intelligence. Specified complexity cannot be purchased without it… It is time to come clean about what natural causes can and cannot accomplish. They cannot substitute for intelligent causes. They are not a free lunch.” (Pg. 371)
This book will be of great interest to those seriously studying Intelligent Design, and similar science/religion issues.
September 1, 2011
This book is very technically complex with mathematics that went completely over my head. However, the fact remains that evolution does not answer all the questions that neo-Darwinians wished it did. Intelligent design provides that answer. If an arrowhead were found, an archaeologist would study it and classify it as perhaps coming from the Bronze Age. But to then turn around and state that the more highly complex DNA molecule 'just happened' by 'blind, random chance' is a huge leap of faith and seems, by all accounts, unreasonable and illogical.
Intelligent design is not simply going to go away because a few atheists and scientists want it to. A poll revealed that 51% of Americans doubt the validity of evolution. Does this mean that they are all 'stupid' and 'uninformed' as Dawkins once claimed? No, it does not. It means that the evidence for evolution has not completely convinced them. Religion may or may not be a factor, since even agnostics put their trust in intelligent design. To dismiss it as being a theological or religious argument ignores this fact and reduces it to a philosophical debate, not an empirical one.
Intelligent design is not simply going to go away because a few atheists and scientists want it to. A poll revealed that 51% of Americans doubt the validity of evolution. Does this mean that they are all 'stupid' and 'uninformed' as Dawkins once claimed? No, it does not. It means that the evidence for evolution has not completely convinced them. Religion may or may not be a factor, since even agnostics put their trust in intelligent design. To dismiss it as being a theological or religious argument ignores this fact and reduces it to a philosophical debate, not an empirical one.
October 9, 2011
This book is clearly over the heads of non mathematicians, such as myself.Yet even I can see that Dembski shows conclusively the tremendous problem evolutionary theorists must one day confront if they wish their credibility to remain intact.
July 1, 2013
This guy is a nutcase. He improperly applies mathematical theorems he clearly does to explain to philosophical problems to which they are not applicable.
July 26, 2016
Application of the design inference to biological life, not peer reviewed.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews