The Core of Dembski’s Case for ID

In his latest book, No Free Lunch, William A. Dembski argues at length (as he has done in several other works) that there are natural objects in the world that a) can be unambiguously identified as objects that could not be the outcome of unguided natural processes alone, and b) must therefore be the products of intelligent design.

How would we recognize these remarkable objects? They exhibit, says Dembski, the empirically detectable quality he calls specified complexity. And why is it that these objects must be the products of intelligent design? Because, claims Dembski, unguided natural processes are inherently incapable of generating specified complexity. Intelligence alone could do that.

In the cultural context of the creation-evolution debate, a predominantly North American phenomenon, the natural objects of greatest interest here are biological systems. Dembski’s favored example is the bacterial flagellum, a quite remarkable molecular machine that functions as a propeller for some bacteria, such as E. coli. This rotary propulsion system also played a prominent role in Michael Behe’s book, Darwin’s Black Box, as an example of a biotic system that exhibits the quality he called irreducible complexity. Dembski considers irreducible complexity - after he carefully redefines and qualifies the meaning of Behe’s term - to be a special form of his more broadly defined specified complexity.

Now, if there are biological systems that - because they exhibit specified complexity - could not have been actualized by natural processes alone, then, argues Dembski, some unembodied intelligent agent must have done something to bring about this naturally impossible outcome. A non-natural action called intelligent design must have made possible what nature, unguided by any interactive intelligence, was wholly incapable of doing. That is Dembski’s core claim - the claim on which the intelligent design movement either stands or falls. Hence the subtitle of his book: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased Without Intelligence.

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