A Review of Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe
By Zach Stearns
June 27, 2005

Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe (hereafter SEDU ), is a collection of six essays by three of the biggest names in intelligent design (ID): William Dembski (Ph.D. in mathematics and Ph.D. in philosophy), Stephen Meyer (Ph.D. in philosophy of science), and Michael Behe (Ph.D. in biochemistry). These three people have been widely criticized by Darwinists, as can be seen by web pages like TalkOrigins.org's Michael Behe FAQ that desires to debunk as much of his material as possible, along with TalkDesign.org – self-described as an anti-ID sub-site of TalkOrigins.org that persistently attacks ID proponents like Behe and Dembski. Caustically critical statements about these scholars abound on the web, such as Richard Wein's dogmatic declaration that the level of scholarship of one of Dembski's books is “abysmally low, and the book is best regarded as pseudoscientific rhetoric aimed at an unwary public which may mistake Dembski's mathematical mumbo jumbo for academic erudition .”

However, one simply needs to glance over a few Amazon.com reviews of ID material to see that many Darwinists haven't read the literature; they are merely polemicists. For example, this is an entire Amazon.com review of SEDU : “ This appears to be a creationist attempt to sucker conservative Catholics into joining up with know-nothing fundamentalists on the issue of evolution. The fundamentalists would be better off sticking to abortion as a point of agreement. The creationists certainly have not convinced the scientific community of ‘intelligent design,' but are trying to snow the religious and political communities into buying their nonsense.”

The first essay, by William Dembski, is introductory yet essential. Titled “The Third Mode of Explanation,” it can be found in almost all of Dembski's work in some way, and for good reason: his explanatory filter, along with his stipulation of complex specified information (CSI), are both presented here. CSI, as Dembski defines in this essay, has two ingredients: sufficiently small probability (SEDU 27) and the ability to match an independently given pattern (SEDU 29). Dembski's example in “Third Mode” is a pattern of all of the primary numbers from 2 to 101 in binary form; since the pattern of numbers is so complex (i.e., extremely improbable to derive by chance) and specified (i.e., independent of the event of creating the pattern), then the explanatory filter induces design to be the appropriate mode of explanation for the pattern. Dembski's work on information found in “Third Mode” is vital in preventing ID from looking like William Paley's discredited analogical arguments. In his Natural Theology, Paley compared the complexity of a watch and the impressive interaction of its parts to different observable systems on Earth. Behe points out in Darwin's Black Box that while Paley's central point, that there are biological structures that must be designed due to their irreducible complexity, “has never actually been refuted,” his examples have been deemed “injudicious” and his methodology couldn't withstand Darwin's rebuttal; many of Paley's examples didn't utilize a standard that would thwart the possibility of “incremental development” (Behe 213-16).

I've seen a robust amount of criticism with regard to Dembski's explanatory filter and CSI, but the critiques have been hollow. Typically, critics neglect the significance of CSI and mechanically staple “Paley's argument recycled” to ID without realizing that CSI makes ID something quite different. Sean Cunningham even calls ID “little more than a souped-up version of [Paley's argument].” Of course, there may be an honest few who don't understand CSI, but it appears as if the Darwinists just reject CSI either because they know it will sting them in the long run or because they have a prior ideological commitment to Darwinism. Essentially, Paley's failure at using some standard for detecting design (e.g., CSI) brought about his eventual downfall. In my opinion, however, Dembski's CSI succeeds precisely where Paley's fell. Even so, I would recommend whoever is introduced to Dembski's explanatory filter and definition of CSI in this book to research some of his other books, including The Design Inference and No Free Lunch .

After finding how intelligence can be inferred, Dembski hands the book off to Meyer and Behe in order to see if we can, in fact, find CSI in the universe. Next in order is Stephen Meyer's “Evidence for Design in Physics and Biology,” which I found to be extremely in-depth and informative. He focuses partly on the anthropic fine-tuning principle, which tries to show that since “the constants in physics, the initial conditions of the universe, and many other of its features appear delicately balanced to allow for the possibility of life” (SEDU 56-57), then the universe must have been designed, due to the outrageously low probability of life. I've found this argument quite convincing, but the reader should determine this on his/her own, not from my words or of any other reviewer – especially not from some of the Amazon.com fundamentalist Darwinists who possibly haven't even touched an ID book.

Meyer spends more time, however, on the mystery of the origin of DNA. In my opinion, this is stronger than the anthropic fine-tuning principle, since Meyer analyzes many of the objections to the design of DNA – such as the creation of DNA through chance, pre-biotic natural selection, and self-organization theories – and systematically dismantles them. In fact, this origin of DNA problem is specifically what convinced renowned atheist philosopher Antony Flew to believe in some supernatural designer. At a symposium sponsored by the Institute for Metascientific Research, Flew noted , “What I think the DNA material has done is show that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements together. The enormous complexity by which the results were achieved look to me like the work of intelligence” (Kinkaid).

Next comes one of Behe's pieces, “Evidence for Design at the Foundation of Life.” While this is rather short, it outlines much of what Behe has been known for: the presence of irreducible complexity (IC) in biochemistry. Dembski has explicated that something exhibits IC when “the system cannot be simplified and still retain the level of function needed for selective advantage” (Design 294). The most common example of IC has been given using a typical mousetrap; every piece of the mechanism is necessary for the entire structure to work at all. Again, Behe's ability to rely on a standard for determining design has kept the argument from dying Paley's death. The biochemist analyzes two examples of IC – the bacterial flagellum and the cilium – by demonstrating that they are inherently motor-like and that a designer must have helped assemble them in some way.

Behe follows this brief but thorough examination with a chapter dedicated to dealing with criticism of his work. He deals with a technical objection brought about by Ken Miller, while also speaking of the issues of blood clotting and falsifiability. This essay is succinct again, and may require further study elsewhere. Essentially, the chapter felt like a question and answer session, and it could be helpful for those of us who tend to question what we read. I would recommend Behe's renowned Darwin's Black Box to find an elaboration of much of his work on IC, which encompasses much of what he wrote in this anthology.

Moving on, Meyer has another amazingly important article based on establishing the “Methodological Equivalence of Naturalistic and Non-Naturalistic Origins Theories,” as the title declares. This paper is just as informative and thorough as Meyer's first entry in SEDU . What's more, the essay shows that ID cannot be thrown out of science if Darwinism is expected to remain in science. It's either neither or both, as Meyer argues, and the day when Darwinists agree to throw out their theory shouldn't be expected anytime soon.

Finally, a short essay penned by both Meyer and Dembski concludes the compilation; this piece simply argues that the Christian doctrine of divine Creation may be the most causally adequate explanation of the Big Bang. It is not proving that the Big Bang implies a supernatural creator, as some critics suggest; the authors merely assert that it is the best explanation given the knowledge we have and the opposing, naturalist possibilities. To me, this final part of the anthology is the deepest philosophically and could be rather unwieldy for those without much background in philosophy.

Overall, this book is a must-read for those who are seriously curious about some of the arguments presented by Dembski, Meyer, and Behe. Also, if you are interested in an elaboration on the DNA issue and the methodological equivalence of ID and Darwinism, this a great place to find it. (Meyer's work amounts to about half of the book.) Additionally, if one is looking for introductory material for Dembski's and/or Behe's arguments, then this is also a wonderful starting point. SEDU might not have the subject diversity of anthologies like Signs of Intelligence or Mere Creation , but it still powerfully and cogently explains a couple of ID's key supporting points.

Works Cited

Behe, Michael J. Darwin's Black Box . New York : The Free Press, 1996.

Dembski, William A. The Design Revolution . Downers Grove , Illinois : InterVarsity Press, 2004.

---. “The Third Mode of Explanation: Detecting Evidence of Intelligent Design in the Sciences." Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe . Ed. Michael J. Behe, William A. Dembski, and Stephen C. Meyer. San Francisco : Ignatius P, 2000. 17-51

Cunningham, Sean J. "Paley's New Clothes: A review of God, the Devil, and Darwin by Niall Shanks." Evolutionary Psychology 2 (2004): 195-199. Click here .

Kinkaid, Cliff. "Former Atheist Says God Exists." AIM Report 21 Dec. 2004. Click here

Meyer, Stephen C. “Evidence for Design in Physics and Biology: From the Origin of the Universe to the Origin of Life.” Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe . Ed. Michael J. Behe, William A. Dembski, and Stephen C. Meyer. San Francisco : Ignatius P, 2000. 53-111.

"Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe." Online posting. 5 July 2001. Amazon.com. Click here .

Wein, Richard. Not a Free Lunch But a Box of Chocolates . 23 Apr. 2002. TalkReason.org. Click here .

Copyright 2005 Zach Stearns. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.