Editing Intelligent Design (book) (section)

== Overview ==
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Dembski begins by analyzing [[Omen|sign]]s from [[God]] in the [[Bible]], and notes that such signs have [[specificity (tests)|specificity]] and [[complexity]], which enables them to be clearly discernible.  He considers this to be a general insight regarding recognition of the "Divine Finger", and states, "My aim in this book is to take this [[premodernity|premodern]] logic of signs and make it rigorous."

A review of [[naturalism (philosophy)|naturalistic]] criticisms of miracles, particularly those by [[Benedict Spinoza]] and [[Friedrich Schleiermacher]], follows.  Dembski critiques the critiques, and derides the [[methodological naturalism]] that, he says, is part of their legacy.

He then focuses on the history of [[natural theology]] in Britain, recounting the [[teleological argument]]s of [[William Paley]] and [[Thomas Reid]], and the primary reason for their demise, the Darwinian theory of evolution by [[natural selection]].  Upon introducing it, Dembski immediately criticizes it and commends the critique of [[Charles Hodge]], who he says argued that Darwinism "was trying to subsume intelligent causation under physical causation."

Intelligent design, the central idea of the book, is then introduced.  He distinguishes it from [[theistic evolution]] and, especially, purely naturalistic evolution.  Explaining a motivation for it, he states, "Darwinism is the totalizing claim that [natural selection] accounts for all the diversity and complexity of life.  The evidence simply does not support this claim....  [There] is always a temptation in science [to] think that one's theory encompasses a far bigger domain than it actually does."  He lists numerous phenomena that he claims have proven to be "utterly intractable" for natural selection, including the origin of life, the origin of the [[DNA|genetic code]], and the [[Cambrian explosion]].

Then comes the technical theory.  He introduces his [[specified complexity|complexity-specification criterion]], which states that in order to infer design, three criteria must be met simultaneously: contingency, complexity, and specification.  According to Dembski, the first rules out necessity; the latter two rule out chance.  Combined with his [[universal probability bound]] of 10<sup>−150</sup>, he claims that this criterion is completely accurate when applied to actual objects "with known underlying causal story."

Dembski derives what he purports to be an instance of what [[Peter Medawar]] (in 1984) identified as the [[law of conservation of information]]. However mathematician [[Jeffrey Shallit]] has rebutted this claim, stating that "Medawar’s 'law' is not the same as Dembski’s" in that Medawar "makes no mention of probabilities or the name Shannon", and that "Medawar’s law, by the way, can be made rigorous, but in the context of [[Kolmogorov]] information, not [[Shannon information]] or Dembski’s '[[complex specified information]]'."<ref>[http://ncse.com/files/pub/legal/kitzmiller/expert_reports/2005-05-16_Shallit_expert_rebuttal_P.pdf Shallit expert report], [[Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District]]</ref>

Dembski then introduces the term "complex specified information" (CSI), and claims that CSI is indicative of design.  He considers whether the only known natural mechanisms of [[physical law]] and [[Randomness|chance]], alone or in combination, can generate such information, and concludes that they cannot.  He argues that this is so because laws can only shift around or lose information, but do not produce it, and chance can produce complex unspecified information, or unspecified complex information, but not CSI; he provides a mathematical analysis that he claims demonstrates that law and chance working together cannot generate CSI, either.

Moreover, Dembski claims that CSI is [[holism|holistic]] (with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts, and that this decisively eliminates Darwinian evolution as a possible means of its creation.  He then enumerates the possible sources of CSI in biological organisms: [[inheritance]], [[natural selection|selection]], and [[infusion]].  He states that the first two sources are "unable to account for the CSI in biological systems (and specifically for the [[irreducible complexity]] of certain biochemical systems...)", and therefore concludes that CSI must come from infusion.  He further argues that biotic infusion cannot ultimately account for CSI, and so abiotic infusion must be the source.

Dembski maintains that by process of elimination, CSI is best explained as being due to [[intelligence (trait)|intelligence]], and is therefore a reliable indicator of [[design]].  He implies that his theory can be useful in several fields, including [[forensic science]], [[intellectual property|intellectual property law]], [[archaeology]], and the [[SETI|search for extraterrestrial intelligence]].

Dembski concludes the book with comments on what he sees as the theological implications of intelligent design.  In an appendix, he offers answers to various objections to intelligent design.