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William Dembski

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.

 

William A. Dembski

The Design Inference

The Design Inference:
Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities

Mere Creation

Mere Creation
Science, Faith, and Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design

Intelligent Design
The Bridge Between Science and Theology
           

Signs of Intelligence

Signs of Intelligence
Understanding Intelligent Design

Uncommon Dissent

Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe

No Free Lunch

No Free Lunch
           

The Design Revolution

The Design Revolution
Answering the Toughest Questions about Intelligent Design

Uncommon Dissent

Uncommon Dissent
Intellectuals Who
Find Darwinism Unconvincing

Debating Design

Debating Design
From Darwin to DNA

Unlocking the Mystery of Life

Where Does the Evidence Lead?

Detecting Design in Biology
Debate at UCLA
ARN YouTube


Reviews/Miscellaneous

  • Because it Works. That's Why!
    A review of Yair Guttmann's The Concept of Probability in Statistical Physics, from Books & Culture, Mar/Apr 2000. File Date: 2.27.01
  • Book Review: Mere Creation: Science, Faith, and Intelligent Design
    Review of Dembski's Mere Creation: Science, Faith, and Intelligent Design, written by Jim Miller.
  • Chance, Necessity, and the War Against Science
    Review of Dembski's The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities., written by Massimo Pigliucci. File Date: 7.5.00
  • Response by Mark I. Vuletic File Date: 7.5.00
  • Commentary: It's Perilous to Ponder the Design of the Universe
    Commentary by UPI Religion Corrrespondent Uwe Siemon-Netto about Baylor University's firing of William Dembski's from his position at the Michael Polanyi Center. File Date: 2.26.01
  • Evolutionary Logic. William Dembski humorously discusses the virtues of evolutionary logic. File Date: 11.05.02
  • How Not to Detect Design
    Review of Dembski's The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities. Written by Branden Fitelson, Christopher Stephens, and Elliott Sober. File Date: 7.5.00
  • Another Way to Detect Design? Response by William A. Dembski. File Date: 7.5.00
  • Evolution's Logic of Credulity: An Unfettered Response to Allen Orr. A comprehensive response to Allen Orr's critique of No Free Lunch in the Boston Review. File Date: 12.05.02
  • Finding Ken Miller's Point
    Dembski response to Ken Miller's comments in Finding Darwin's God. File Date: 7.5.00
  • Introduction to No Free Lunch
    The introduction to Dembski's forthcoming book No Free Lunch. File Date: 10.16.01
  • The Last Magic
    A review of Mark Steiner's The Applicability of Mathematics As a Philosophical Problem, from Books & Culture, Jul/Aug 1999. File Date: 2.27.01
  • Monkey Business
    Dallas Observer article by Lauren Kern discussing Dembski, intelligent design, and the controversy surrounding the April 2000 conference at Baylor University sponsored by the Discovery Institute. File Date: 1.26.01
  • 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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