Editing Intelligent design (section)

===Specified complexity===
{{Main|Specified complexity}}
In 1986, Charles B. Thaxton, a physical chemist and creationist, used the term "specified complexity" from [[information theory]] when claiming that messages transmitted by DNA in the cell were specified by intelligence, and must have originated with an intelligent agent.<ref name="meyermolo" />
The intelligent design concept of "specified complexity" was developed in the 1990s by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian [[William A. Dembski]].<ref name="Time-15-Aug-2005">{{cite magazine |last=Wallis |first=Claudia |date=August 7, 2005 |title=The Evolution Wars |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1090909-3,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070114131252/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1090909-3,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 14, 2007 |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |location=New York |publisher=[[Time Inc.]] |access-date=2011-10-22}}</ref> Dembski states that when something exhibits specified complexity (i.e., is both complex and "specified", simultaneously), one can infer that it was produced by an intelligent cause (i.e., that it was designed) rather than being the result of natural processes. He provides the following examples: "A single letter of the alphabet is specified without being complex. A long sentence of random letters is complex without being specified. A [[Sonnet#English (Shakespearean) sonnet|Shakespearean sonnet]] is both complex and specified."<ref>[[#Dembski 1999|Dembski 1999]], p. 47</ref> He states that details of living things can be similarly characterized, especially the "patterns" of molecular sequences in functional biological molecules such as DNA.

[[Image:Dembski head shot.jpg|thumbnail|left|upright|[[William A. Dembski]] proposed the concept of specified complexity.<ref>Photograph of William A. Dembski taken at lecture given at [[University of California, Berkeley]], March 17, 2006.</ref>|alt=]]
Dembski defines [[complex specified information]] (CSI) as anything with a less than 1 in 10<sup>150</sup> chance of occurring by (natural) chance. Critics say that this renders the argument a [[Tautology (rhetoric)|tautology]]: complex specified information cannot occur naturally because Dembski has defined it thus, so the real question becomes whether or not CSI actually exists in nature.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fitelson |first1=Branden |last2=Stephens |first2=Christopher |last3=Sober |first3=Elliott |author-link3=Elliott Sober |date=September 1999 |title=How Not to Detect Design |url=http://sober.philosophy.wisc.edu/selected-papers/ID-1999-HowNotToDetectDesign_DembskiReview.pdf?attredirects=0 |format=PDF |journal=[[Philosophy of Science (journal)|Philosophy of Science]] |type=Book review |volume=66 |issue=3 |pages=472–488 |issn=0031-8248 |jstor=188598 |access-date=2014-02-28 |doi=10.1086/392699 |s2cid=11079658 |archive-date=March 17, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150317220736/http://sober.philosophy.wisc.edu/selected-papers/ID-1999-HowNotToDetectDesign_DembskiReview.pdf?attredirects=0 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref group="n">{{cite web |last=Dembski |first=William A. |author-link=William A. Dembski |year=2001 |title=Another Way to Detect Design? |url=http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_anotherwaytodetectdesign.htm |access-date=2012-06-16 |website=Metanexus |publisher=[[Metanexus Institute]] |location=New York}} This is a "three part lecture series entitled 'Another Way to Detect Design' which contains William Dembski's response to Fitelson, Stephens, and Sober whose article 'How Not to Detect Design' ran on Metanexus:Views (2001.09.14, 2001.09.21, and 2001.09.28). These lectures were first made available online at Metanexus: The Online Forum on Religion and Science http://www.metanexus.net. This is from three keynote lectures delivered October 5–6<!--verbatim quote-->, 2001 at the Society of Christian Philosopher's meeting at the University of Colorado, Boulder."</ref><ref name="Wein">{{cite web |url=http://www.talkorigins.org/design/faqs/nfl/ |title=Not a Free Lunch But a Box of Chocolates: A critique of William Dembski's book ''No Free Lunch'' |last=Wein |first=Richard |year=2002 |website=[[TalkOrigins Archive]] |publisher=The TalkOrigins Foundation, Inc. |location=Houston |access-date=2012-06-16}}</ref>

The conceptual soundness of Dembski's specified complexity/CSI argument has been discredited in the scientific and mathematical communities.<ref name="talkorigins.org, math.jmu.edu">{{cite web |last=Baldwin |first=Rich |url=http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/information/dembski.html |title=Information Theory and Creationism: William Dembski |date=July 14, 2005 |website=TalkOrigins Archive |publisher=The TalkOrigins Foundation, Inc. |location=Houston |access-date=2012-06-16}}
* {{cite journal |last=Rosenhouse |first=Jason |author-link=Jason Rosenhouse |date=Fall 2001 |title=How Anti-Evolutionists Abuse Mathematics |url=http://educ.jmu.edu/~rosenhjd/sewell.pdf |journal=[[The Mathematical Intelligencer]] |volume=23 |issue=4 |pages=3–8 |doi=10.1007/bf03024593 |s2cid=189888286 |oclc=3526661 |access-date=2012-06-16}}</ref><ref name="Perakh2005a">{{cite web |url=http://www.talkreason.org/articles/newmath.cfm |title=Dembski 'displaces Darwinism' mathematically – or does he? |last=Perakh |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Perakh |date=March 18, 2005 |website=Talk Reason |access-date=2012-06-16}}</ref> Specified complexity has yet to be shown to have wide applications in other fields, as Dembski asserts. John Wilkins and [[Wesley R. Elsberry]] characterize Dembski's "explanatory filter" as ''eliminative'' because it eliminates explanations sequentially: first regularity, then chance, finally defaulting to design. They argue that this procedure is flawed as a model for scientific inference because the asymmetric way it treats the different possible explanations renders it prone to making false conclusions.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wilkins |first1=John S. |last2=Elsberry |first2=Wesley R. |date=November 2001 |title=The Advantages of Theft over Toil: The Design Inference and Arguing from Ignorance |url=http://www.talkdesign.org/cs/theft_over_toil |journal=[[Biology and Philosophy]] |volume=16 |issue=5 |pages=709–722 |doi=10.1023/A:1012282323054 |s2cid=170765232 |issn=0169-3867 |access-date=2014-02-28|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[Richard Dawkins]], evolutionary biologist and religion critic, argues in ''[[The God Delusion]]'' (2006) that allowing for an intelligent designer to account for unlikely complexity only postpones the problem, as such a designer would need to be at least as complex.<ref>[[#Dawkins 2006|Dawkins 2006]]</ref> Other scientists have argued that evolution through selection is better able to explain the observed complexity, as is evident from the use of selective evolution to design certain electronic, aeronautic and automotive systems that are considered problems too complex for human "intelligent designers".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Marks |first=Paul |date=July 28, 2007 |title=Evolutionary algorithms now surpass human designers |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19526146.000-evolutionary-algorithms-now-surpass-human-designers.html |journal=[[New Scientist]] |issue=2614 |pages=26–27 |issn=0262-4079 |access-date=2014-02-28}}</ref>