Two questions regarding William Dembski

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I’m working on a book that includes a chapter on Dr. Dembski, and I’m curious about a couple of assumptions I’m making.

First, has Dembski worked through a specified complexity/CSI calculation for anything other than the 4 subjects Dr. Elsberry identified in this post? That’s the Caputo incident, the flagellum, the WEASEL program and the SETI data. I haven’t seen any other significant instances of him actually working through a case, but I want to make sure I’m not missing anything.

Second, is anyone aware of any incident in which the intelligent design community, particularly the credentialed experts but including any prominent member, has scrutinized and rejected an ID idea? Dembski’s temporary rejection of his own explanatory filter would be an example, had he not walked it back a week or so later. Again, I can’t think of any good examples, but want to make sure I’m not missing anything.

22 thoughts on “Two questions regarding William Dembski”

  4. Regarding your second question, I’ve been racking my brain and I can’t think of a single instance in which a prominent ID proponent has rejected an idea proposed by another prominent IDer.

  5. Thanks, that’s a good example. I had read some of the UD posts about it, and I appreciate the more helpful & informative commentary at Sandwalk.

    Any instances in which an icon of ID, like the explanatory filter or irreducible complexity, has been jettisoned? The grayest area for me is Dembski’s body of collaboration with Marks; I have trouble following the technical details, so it’s hard for me to see what might be buried in the nooks and crannies.

  6. Learned Hand: Any instances in which an icon of ID, like the explanatory filter or irreducible complexity, has been jettisoned?

    The most famous example is Dembki’s declaration that he was jettisoning the “explanatory filter” and his subsequent volte-face following the comments from critics. The best reference to this used to be the ARN forum which has disappeared so I can’t immediately provide links. Maybe others can chip in. ,

    Also see Wesley Elsberry’s link here for a comprehensive take-down of the “explanatory filter”. TL/DR “Stuff we can’t explain therefore God!” refuted.

    ETA Dembski abandons EF

    ETA Dembski recants!

  7. Dembski in 2005 made it clear(er) that you only compute CSI after you have ruled out all possible natural processes, including natural selection. Up to that point (and somewhat after that point) most of his critics had missed that, and assumed that he was using CSI to calculate the improbability of a pattern under processes such as random mutation. The Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information was thought to rule out that natural selection could produce CSI. We critics then argued that the LCCSI was not correct.

    So were we critics being wrong and silly? If so, Dembski’s supporters were too, as most of them interpreted his work the same way and made the same mistake. They continually argued that observation of CSI proved that the specification could not have come about by processes such as natural selection. But under the clarified interpretation of CSI, you couldn’t even declare CSI to be present until you had already ruled out natural selection as bringing about the SI.

    So it turned out that CSI is not wrong. But it is useless — it is only computed after you make your Design Inference. (In that case I don’t see what the conservation law was ever supposed to do for us, even if it were correct).

    The Search For a Search work with Marks is actually a separate set of issues. They start with the premise that a fitness surface that is smooth enough may enable natural selection to work. They say that they are not conceding that such surfaces are real — they are considering a hypothetical. Then they argue that such surfaces are implausibly unlikely. The counterargument to theirs is that physics and chemistry predispose to smoother than totally-white-noise fitness surfaces.

    Some references:
    1. My 2007 article rejecting the LCCSI. It also rejects the Search For a Search argument (and the No Free Lunch argument).
    2. Dembski’s 2006 clarification that all natural forces must be taken into account in order to compute CSI.
    3. Me on Dembski’s clarification and where the clarification leaves CSI
    4. Elizabeth Liddle’s take on that (the famous EleP(H|T)ant In the Room)
    5. Her followup rebuttal to Winston Ewert

    But surely you all know all this.

  8. Learned Hand:

    The grayest area for me is Dembski’s body of collaboration with Marks; I have trouble following the technical details, so it’s hard for me to see what might be buried in the nooks and crannies.

    Despite his snarky re-embrace of the EF, Dembski seems to have abandoned it in his recent work with Marks.

    In his earlier work, he claimed that unguided evolution was impossible. His later work tries to demonstrate that if evolution is unguided, then the information must have been smuggled into the fitness functions from an Intelligent Source.

  11. Maybe Dembski hasn’t given up on CSI after all. From a description at ENV of the recent Westminster Conference on Faith and Science:

    Behe was followed by Dr. Dembski on “Design as a Theory of Information,” in which Dembski showed conclusively that the complex, specified information we observe in the genetic code cannot be accounted for in Darwinian terms.

  12. Learned Hand,

    Second, is anyone aware of any incident in which the intelligent design community, particularly the credentialed experts but including any prominent member, has scrutinized and rejected an ID idea?

    I’m not sure if this qualifies as an “ID idea”, but there is disagreement among ID “experts” over the significance of junk DNA.

    Vincent Torley’s latest post quotes Dembski and Richard Sternberg on the subject.

    Dembski:

    But design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term “junk DNA.” Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as “junk” merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function.

    Sternberg:

    Based on my conversations with Collins, it became apparent to me that his god is a strict nineteenth-century utilitarian who would, if he deigned to create, manufacture only highly efficient and minimalist entities. His deity would only provide evidence of his handiwork by means of Bauhaus-like architectures, as Baroque or Rococo designs would be, well, excessive and wasteful. A purposefully, intelligently designed cell would, judging from his points, resemble ever so much Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. And since what we so often observe are over-the-top excrescences and strings of DNA that just don’t seem to have a purpose – bad, sloppy design according to Collins’ way of thinking – we know, we know – as a scientific fact, no less – that the genome is randomly cobbled together in length and breadth and all the way up and down.

  13. What constitutes and ID idea?
    There are IDists who reject common descent and those that accept it.

    I would count Douglas Axe as a major player, and he is associated with opposition to human descent from a common ancestor with other apes.

    Behe does not argue that new proteins can evolve, but some IDists argue that protein domains are isolated and must have been designed.

  14. In particular I mean an idea originating from or associated with the ID movement: irreducible complexity, CSI, specified complexity (Dembski’s, as opposed to Orgel’s), etc.

    Part of what I’m writing, although it may not make the book, is an analysis of how laypeople can assess expert-level discussions. Assuming that only professional mathematicians can understand the CSI arguments (I know that’s an overstatement, but for the sake of argument) doesn’t mean that laypeople can’t make a responsible, rational credibility assessment to help them determine who’s likely to be right.

    The inability or unwillingness of creationists to filter unworkable and discredited ideas is a part of that credibility analysis.

  16. Learned Hand: In particular I mean an idea originating from or associated with the ID movement: irreducible complexity, CSI, specified complexity (Dembski’s, as opposed to Orgel’s), etc.

    Note that irreducible complexity is not connected with CSI. The version of CSI in which “chance” is taken to be process like random mutation, there is no connection of CSI to IC. In the clarified version of CSI in which “chance” includes natural selection, the inability of natural selection to bring about the adaptation may be argued to be relevant. But anyway that version of CSI is also basically useless.

  17. Joe,

    I don’t think LH was implying that CSI and IC are necessarily related. He was just listing them as examples of “ID ideas”, and he is wondering if we are aware of any such ideas that have been offered by one prominent ID proponent and rejected by another.

  18. Yes, keiths is right–sorry if I was unclear.

    The book is still in early stages, so I can only describe the underlying premises and directions in which it might grow; I’m working on firming up the organizational logic.

    As a bit of background, I’m not a scientist or trained in the sciences. I’m an attorney with a background in complex commercial litigation (financial fraud stuff, mostly) and, more recently, a consultant/expert in negotiation and communications.

    When I changed careers I wanted to write a book to even out my time, since consulting is a much more relaxed schedule than litigating. Originally it was going to be a book about the flaws of creationism, but frankly that book has already been written (and written better than I’d expect to).

    So I broadened the scope to include irrational ideologies generally, as well as some communication tools that are relevant.

    As it currently stands, I’m starting with an explanation of why rational people believe irrational things. I’m a big fan of “Rational Irrationality“, which basically posits that it’s reasonable to believe something false, and be confident in that belief, if your belief and certainty maximize your personal welfare.

    I’m then exploring some case studies, which is where Dembski comes in. I take the position (unsurprisingly) that his belief that he can detect design is irrational. But since he gets income and respect from his co-religionist peers for that belief, it’s rational for him to hold it. I’m planning to do similar case studies on Andrew Wakefield and some people in the legal sphere you might not be familiar with. I’d love to do Kent Hovind, but he declined my request for an interview. (So did Dembski, but there’s more information out there about him to draw upon.)

    After the case studies I’ll go into some communication strategies for debating with believers in irrational ideas, based on personal experience and negotiation theory.

    I’m still working out how to integrate some additional material, such as how laypeople can determine whether expert-level arguments are rational. That’s one way my questions will be integrated.

  19. LH,

    I’m a big fan of “Rational Irrationality“, which basically posits that it’s reasonable to believe something false, and be confident in that belief, if your belief and certainty maximize your personal welfare.

    It’s an interesting idea, but I wonder how many people can rationally will themselves into confidently believing something that they think (or know) is false.

    I’ve seen versions of irrationality in which people fear the truth and deliberately avoid asking questions that will reveal it to themselves, and I’ve also seen cases where people simply can’t handle the truth (cue Jack Nicholson) and use denial as a defense mechanism, but neither of those seems to fit the bill.

    ETA: Never mind. I followed your link and found this paragraph:

    Rational irrationality is not doublethink — it does not state that the individual deliberately chooses to believe something he or she knows to be false. Rather, the theory is that, when the costs of having erroneous beliefs are low, people relax their intellectual standards and allow themselves to be more easily influenced by fallacious reasoning, cognitive biases, and emotional appeals. In other words, people do not deliberately seek to believe false things but rather stop putting in the intellectual effort to be open to evidence that may contradict their beliefs.

  20. So interestingly enough I interviewed the economist who developed this theory. He doesn’t like the Wikipedia explanation about relaxing mental standards. I do, though, so I’m using a similar approach.

    I also think that beliefs are highly mutable. If someone tells me that they honestly believe something, it’s better to take them at their word than to get into a fight about what they believe.

  21. LH,

    So interestingly enough I interviewed the economist who developed this theory. He doesn’t like the Wikipedia explanation about relaxing mental standards.

    That is interesting. So he thinks people are quite deliberately and consciously choosing to believe things that they know are wrong?

    I do, though, so I’m using a similar approach.

    I do, too, and you can see examples of it all over the place, as when scientists like Francis Collins and Ken Miller compartmentalize their religious beliefs to protect them from the kind of scrutiny that their scientific ideas get.

    I also think that beliefs are highly mutable. If someone tells me that they honestly believe something, it’s better to take them at their word than to get into a fight about what they believe.

    I agree that beliefs are highly mutable. I just wonder to what degree they’re voluntarily and deliberately mutable. Let me know if you come across any psychological research on that question.

  22. Professor Behe has modified, though not withdrawn, his concept of Irreducible Complexity. To Behe’s credit, he was actually doing good science at this point.

    His initial proposal was:

    1: Irreducibly Complex systems cannot evolve.
    2: Living organisms contain Irreducibly Complex systems.
    3: Therefore parts of living organisms cannot have evolved.

    Unfortunately for Behe this argument fails at step one. IC systems can and do evolve, as shown by Lenski and others. It is no criticism of Behe that he put forward a failed hypothesis; most scientific hypotheses fail. Indeed in this case it was a useful failure that lead to a lot of good work, from Lenski and others, on exactly how complex systems, such as the blood clotting cascade and bacterial flagella, evolve. IC, as originally proposed, was a failure, but an interesting and useful failure.

    Behe reacted correctly to his failure — he amended his hypothesis to account for the new facts:

    1: Irreducibly Complex systems are unlikely to evolve.
    2: Living organisms contain Irreducibly Complex systems.
    3: Therefore parts of living organisms are unlikely to have evolved.

    In 2004 Behe produced a paper examining just how unlikely it is that IC systems can evolve: Behe and Snoke, (2004) “Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues”. Behe’s own figures from that paper, as used in the Kitzmiller trial, showed that a small population of bacteria could evolve a simple IC system in about 20,000 years. Since then Behe appears to have put less emphasis on IC.

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