The intellectual and cultural battles now raging over theism and atheism, conservatism and secular progressivism, dualism and monism, realism and antirealism, and transcendent reality versus material reality extend even into the scientific disciplines. This stunning new volume captures this titanic clash of worldviews among those who have thought most deeply about the nature of science and of the universe itself. Unmatched in its breadth and scope, The Nature of Nature brings together some of the most influential scientists, scholars, and public intellectuals — including three Nobel laureates — across a wide spectrum of disciplines and schools of thought. Here they grapple with a perennial question that has been made all the more pressing by recent advances in the …
Intelligent Design 101 brings together leading scholars and researchers from the fields of science and intelligent design studies, such as Michael Behe and Phillip Johnson. Their detailed and insightful essays form an introduction to intelligent design, from the basics of the theory, to its history and growing place in science and education. Table of Contents List of Illustrations — 9Contributors — 11Foreword — William Dembski — 15Preface — 17Acknowledgments — 19Bringing Balance to a Fiery Debate — Phillip Johnson — 21Intelligent Design and the Nature of Science — J. P. Moreland — 41Finding Intelligent Design in Nature — Casey Luskin — 67Darwin’s Black Box: Is Irreducible Complexity Still a Conundrum for Darwinism? — Michael J. …
In this popular treatment of intelligent design, Senior Discovery Fellow William Dembski combines his Ph.D. in philosophy and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago with his Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary to elucidate how the scientific theory of intelligent design interacts with his personal Christian faith. Dembski explains that design is empirically detectable in nature by seeking for specified and complex information. Choice is the primary characteristic of intelligent action, for “intelligent agency always entails discrimination, choosing certain things, ruling out others.” (pg. 144) By analyzing the patterns produced by such choice, Dembski constructs reliable criteria by which we recognize when intelligent choices have been …
This balanced volume contains essays by both supporters and critics debating intelligent design and whether design should be allowed in public school science classes. The scholars approach the question from the standpoints of constitutional law, philosophy, rhetoric, education, and science. Legal scholar David DeWolf, and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow, argues that teachers should have the academic freedom to teach intelligent design in the classroom because of its empirical, nonreligious basis. John Angus Campbell, Discovery Fellow, sees intelligent design as the pedagogical and historical antithesis to Neo-Darwinism, both of which must be taught if students are to properly understand biological origins. Pro-design technical arguments reach into many forums: William Dembski …
Phillip Johnson and the Intelligent Design Movement
William A. Dembski
February 13, 2006
With the publication of Darwin on Trial in 1991, Cal Berkeley legal scholar Phillip Johnson became the leading figure in the intelligent design movement. Exposing and calling into question the philosophical foundations of Darwinism, Johnson led the charge against this largely unquestioned philosophy of materialistic reductionism and its purported basis in scientific research. This book reviews and celebrates the life and thought of Phillip Johnson and the movement for which he has served as chief architect. Editor William A. Dembski presents eighteen essays by those who have known and worked with Johnson for more than a decade. They provide personal and in-depth insight into the man, his convictions and his leadership of the intellectual movement that called into question the …
This Cambridge University Press volume, co-edited by leading design theorist William Dembski, and leading Darwinist philosopher of science Michael Ruse, provides perspectives from scholars on many sides of the ID-debate. The book provides a perfect template for those who would be interested in a comprehensive approach to biological origins in schools: it contains essays by proponents of Darwinism, self-organization, and intelligent design. The volume begins with points of agreement between Darwinist philosopher of science Michael Ruse and leading intelligent design theorist and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow William Dembski. They agree that intelligent design faces harsh intolerance from the powers that be in the scientific community. Essays by design critics then go on to …
Recent discoveries in physics, cosmology, and biochemistry have captured the public imagination and made the Design Argument – the theory that God created the world according to a specific plan – the object of renewed scientific and philosophical interest. This accessible but serious introduction to the design problem brings together new perspectives from prominent scientists and philosophers including Paul Davies, Richard Swinburne, Sir Martin Rees, Michael Behe, Elliot Sober and Peter van Inwagen. It probes the relationship between modern science and religious belief, considering their points of conflict and their many points of similarity. Is the real God of creationism the ‘master clockmaker’ who sets the world’s mechanism on a perfectly enduring …
Papers Presented at a Conference Sponsored by the Wethersfield Institute, New York City, September 25, 1999
Michael J. Behe
October 1, 2000
As progress in science continues to reveal unimagined complexities, three scientists revisit the difficult and compelling question of the origin of our universe. As mathematician, biochemist, and philosopher of science, they explore the possibility of developing a reliable method for detecting an intelligent cause and evidence for design at the origin of life. In the process, they present a strong case for opening and pursuing a fruitful exchange between science and theology. Mathematician William Dembski, author of The Design Inference, first argues that new developments in the information sciences make intelligent design objectively and scientifically detectable — he identifies the signs of design. Next, philosopher of science, Stephen Meyer, and biochemist Michael Behe, …
