The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities is a controversial 1998 book by the American mathematician, philosopher and theologian William Dembski. In it, Dembski sets out to establish a mechanism through which one could infer scientific evidence of intelligent design (ID) in nature using what he calls an "explanatory filter". The scientific community including the The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, views intelligent ...
more
The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities is a controversial 1998 book by the American mathematician, philosopher and theologian William Dembski. In it, Dembski sets out to establish a mechanism through which one could infer scientific evidence of intelligent design (ID) in nature using what he calls an "explanatory filter". The scientific community including the The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, views intelligent design not as a valid scientific theory but as pseudoscience or junk science.
In the book Dembski introduces what he calls an "explanatory filter"; a method by which chance is ruled out when a highly improbable event conforms to a discernible pattern which is given independently of the event itself. This 'pattern' is Dembski's concept of specified complexity, which is widely regarded as mathematically unsound. The filter states that if the thing being examined cannot be explained by a law, and it is too statistically unlikely to be explained...
less
