A mathematician and philosopher, William A. Dembski is Research Professor in Philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth. He is also a senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle as well as the executive director of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design. Previously he was the Carl F. H. Henry Professor of Theology and Science at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, where he founded its Center for Theology and Science. Before that he was Associate Research Professor in the Conceptual Foundations of Science at Baylor University, where he also headed the first intelligent design think-tank at a major research university: The Michael Polanyi Center.
Dr. 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.
Dr. Dembski has published articles in mathematics, philosophy, and theology journals and is the author/editor of more than ten books. In The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities (Cambridge University Press, 1998), he examines the design argument in a post-Darwinian context and analyzes the connections linking chance, probability, and intelligent causation. The sequel to The Design Inference appeared with Rowman & Littlefield in 2002 and critiques Darwinian and other naturalistic accounts of evolution. It is titled No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence. Dr. Dembski has edited several influential anthologies, including Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing (ISI, 2004) and Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA (Cambridge University Press, 2004, co-edited with Michael Ruse). His newest book is a festschrift volume in honor of Phillip Johnson. It is titled Darwin’s Nemesis: Phillip Johnson and the Intelligent Design Movement.
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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William A. Dembski
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The Design Inference:
Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities |
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Mere Creation
Science, Faith, and Intelligent Design |
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Intelligent Design
The Bridge Between Science and Theology |
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Signs of Intelligence
Understanding Intelligent Design |
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Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe |
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No Free Lunch |
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The Design Revolution
Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design |
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Uncommon Dissent
Intellectuals Who
Find Darwinism Unconvincing |
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Debating Design
From Darwin to DNA |
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Unlocking the Mystery of Life
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Where Does the Evidence Lead?
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Detecting Design in Biology
Debate at UCLA
ARN YouTube |
Reviews/Miscellaneous
Articles
The
Act of Creation: Bridging Transcendence and Immanence
Presented at Millstatt Forum, Strasbourg,
France, 10 August 1998. File Date 11.15.98.
America's
Obsession with Design
Why is it that Americans seemed compelled by the notion of design in
biology? File Date: 10.16.01
An Analysis of
Homer Simpson and Stephen Jay Gould
A recent epidode of The Simpsons featured Stephen Jay Gould in
the role of a scientist at the local museum. In this review, Bill Dembski
offers his observations and commentary about that episode. File Date:
11.29.97.
Another
Way to Detect Design?
Dembski considers whether there is another reliable way to detect design
apart from specified complexity. File Date: 10.16.01
Becoming
a Disciplined Science: Prospects, Pitfalls, and a Reality Check for
ID. File Date: 10.30.02
Biology
in the Subjunctive Mood: A Response to Nicholas Matzke Dembski
responds to Matzke's October 11, 2003 article on the Talk Reason website
titled "Evolution in (Brownian) Space: A Model for the Origin of
the Bacterial Flagellum", in which Dembski says Matzke attempts
to rebut one of the main challenges that intelligent design has raised
against Darwinian evolution, namely, how to explain the emergence of
irreducibly complex biochemical machines like the bacterial flagellum..
File Date: 11.12.03
Conflating
Matter and Mind
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 43:2 199. File Date: 11.15.98.
Converting
Matter into Mind: Alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone in Cognitive Science
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 42:4 1990. File Date: 11.12.98.
Design
as a Research Program: 14 Questions to Ask About Design
Dembski argues that design can and does have a number of empirical implications
and can be discussed and debated quite apart from questions about the
identity and nature of the designer. File Date: 7.05.00
Evolutionary
Logic. William Dembski humorously discusses
the virtues of evolutionary logic. File Date: 11.05.02
Fruitful
Interchange or Polite Chitchat? The Dialogue Between Science and Theology
The demand that epistemic support be explicated as rational compulsion
has consistently undermined the dialogue between theology and science.
Rational compulsion entails too restrictive a form of epistemic support
for most scientific theorizing, let alone interdisciplinary dialogue.
This essay presents a less restrictive form of epistemic support, explicated
not as rational compulsion but as explanatory power. Co-authored with
Stephen C. Meyer. File Date: 2.06.02
The
Explanatory Filter: A three-part filter for understanding how to separate
and identify cause from intelligent design.
An excerpt from a paper presented at the 1996 Mere Creation conference,
originally titled "Redesigning Science." File Date: 11.15.98.
The Fallacy
of Contextualism
Reprinted from The Princeton Theological Review, October 1994.
File Date 11.15.98
ID
as a Theory of Technological Evolution
Dembski sets out to draw parallels between patterns in human invention
and patterns in the development of life on earth. File Date: 10.16.01
Intelligent
Design as a Theory of Information
File Date 11.15.98.
The
Intelligent Design Movement
From Cosmic Pursuit, Spring 1998. File Date 11.15.98.
Is
Intelligent Design Testable?
A response to Eugenie Scott in which Dembski considers the claim that
ID is not testable. File Date: 10.16.01
Science
and Design
From First Things October 1998.
Teaching
Intelligent Design as Religion or Science?
Reprinted from The Princeton Theological Review, April 1996.
file Date 11.15.98.
Teaching
Intelligent Design: What Happened When?
Dembski responds to Eugenie Scott's post to META (METAVIEWS 008, 02.12.01),
saying Scott "seems willing to allow that intelligent design might
some day and in some limited sense achieve scientific legitimacy".
File Date: 2.27.01
Ten Questions to Ask your Biology Teacher about Design File Date: 1.22.04
What Every
Theologian Should Know about Creation, Evolution and Design
Reprinted from The Princeton Theological Review, March 1996.
File Date 11.15.98
From the Origins &
Design Archives
Alchemy,
NK Boolean Style
Review of Stuart Kauffman's At Home in the Universe. Origins & Design 17:2.
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