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WACO?A mathematician and philosopher, William Dembski is usually mentioned with former Berkeley law professor Philip Johnson (author of “Darwin on Trial”) and Lehigh University biochemist Michael Behe (Darwin’s Black Box”) as a leader among intelligent design (ID) advocates. He defended ID opposite evolutionist Michael Ruse on ABC’s “Nightline” program in early May. His six years as a Baylor research professor?some of it tumultuous?officially ended May 31. Brought in by former President Robert Sloan to head an intelligent design (ID) think tank, Dembski became a provocative figure among some faculty members for his aggressive work in the blossoming ID movement. Consequently, the think tank, the Michael Polanyi Center, was dissolved in October 2000, a little more than a year after Dembski arrived. He stayed on as a researcher but taught no classes. As of this month, Dembski is the director of the new Center for Science and Theology at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky. He will continue as a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture in Seattle and as executive director of the International Society of Complexity, Information and Design, he said. His academic resume is rare: he holds Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from the University of Chicago and philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also earned a master of divinity degree at Princeton, earned an M.S. in statistics and has done postdoctoral work at MIT. Dembski has written seven books, the most recent a co-edited work with his “Nightline” opponent, Michael Ruse, called “Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA.” Dembski and his wife, Jana, have a 6-year-old daughter and 4-year-old twin boys. The following is excerpted from an interview done at his home near Waco last month. Q. Intelligent design has really begun its ascent in the last decade. Where would you mark its beginning as a movement? A. I would begin with “The Mystery of Life’s Origin” by Walter Bradley, Charles Thaxton and Roger Olsen. This was a critique of origin-of-life scenarios, which raised the possibility of intelligent design, and the epilogue came out in 1984. And then a year later, it was “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis,” by Michael Denton. It was a very stringent critique of evolution, based in Neo-Darwinism, and raised the possibility of design again. ? And then in the late ’80s, early ’90s, Phil Johnson comes up with a philosophical critique, poses a question: Why is this theory so widely held when evidence for it is poor? And so it’s a false philosophy he calls naturalism. And then in ’96, (Michael) Behe “Darwin’s Black Box,” which really ramps things up, because then you start having glimmers of a positive ID program. In ’98 I came out with a theoretical manifesto on design detection, how to do it, and it mapped very nicely on some of the things Behe had done. “Darwin’s Black Box”?that was just a huge event. Behe is a biochemist at a recognized university (Lehigh) who is weighing in on these topics. ? Even to this day?and I think the last time I talked to him was about a year-and-a-half ago?it’s still selling 10,000-15,000 copies a year, which is amazing. Q. What affect has “Darwin’s Black Box” had in academia? A. The younger generation seems more intrigued by it if they haven’t been indoctrinated into the Darwinian way of thinking. Behe’s irreducible complexity notion?the idea that the cell, for instance, is so complex it could not exist unless all of its components came together simultaneously?does present a barrier for ID opponents. But you can imagine ways of getting around it. Behe has this five-part mousetrap he uses as an example of irreducible complexity. You’ve got the base, you’ve got the spring, the holding bar, catch and hammer. How could you evolve something like this by some gradual path over time? You might say if you remove any part and don’t modify the other parts, you don’t have something that can function as a mousetrap and the parts themselves are useless. But you can imagine what can be called an indirect Darwinian path, where you start out with a base that serves as a doorstop ? on and on until you have all the components?and then you have a mousetrap. But the components would have to serve another purpose until all the parts were in place. And that’s the scenario that people are speculating about. But they don’t have any detailed Darwinian pathways. They don’t tell how this actually happened with any level of detail. Q. How would you appraise the ID movement right now? How has it progress |
