A PRESENTATION WITHOUT ARGUMENTS

           How William Dembski defeats skepticism, or does he?

By Mark Perakh

Posted on June 22, 2002; updated on June 27, 2002

            Starting on June 20, 2002 and through June 23, the 4^th World Conference of Skeptics took place in Burbank, CA. Its main organizer in the USA was CSICOP, which stands for Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Although the forum in question was designed as a meeting of skeptics, whose participants are all squarely on the side of genuine science and opponents of all incarnations of creationism regardless of the disguises the latter employs (such as Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, etc) one not quite common feature of that meeting’s program was that its organizers invited two prominent proponents of modern modifications of creationism, William Dembski and Paul Nelson, to give talks and to defend their views in an open dispute with two opponents of the anti-evolution movement, Wesley Elsberry and Kenneth Miller.  I cannot remember a single conference of creationists wherein the opponents of creationism were scheduled to give talks in an open discussion.

            The proponents of creationism sometimes accuse their detractors of being doctrinaire adherents of anti-religious bias whose motivation is not pursuing the truth but assaulting the religious faith.  Although this may be not the most important point, still it seems worth mentioning that both Elsberry and Miller have asserted that they are not atheists.  Professor of biology Miller is a faithful Catholic, and Elsberry, while vigorously defending the theory of evolution, has also said that he is a “theistic evolutionist.”

            Hence, both Dembski and Nelson were given a chance to argue in favor of their position using arguments of substance, based on facts rather than on ideology, in a dispute with opponents who had no reason to assault Dembski’s and Nelson’s religious beliefs

            In this brief essay I will discuss only the presentation by Dembski.         

The conference was not yet over as William Dembski had already posted the text of his presentation [1]. A byline there asserts that the document in question is version 2.1 and that it is the “final version.” 

The text of Dembski’s presentation is notable by the almost complete absence of any arguments relevant to the gist of the dispute between ID advocates, like he himself, and the opponents of that theory. Indeed, the only instance of Dembski’s touching on the substance of the dispute seems to be a paragraph on page 4 where Dembski mentions his term of Specified Complexity and unequivocally defines it as a synonym for “specified improbability.”  Of course, there is nothing new in that statement. Dembski’s interpretation of complexity as “disguised improbability” was expressed by him in various forms in many of his articles and books (for example, in [2,3]). This interpretation has been criticized more than once as being contrary to logic and to the accepted mathematical notion of complexity (see the partial list of references at the end of this essay). Dembski’s statement illustrates once again his disdainful dismissal of all and every criticism directed at his work. Dembski does not bother to offer any reply to the critique of his interpretation of complexity and steadfastly adheres to his concept which is viewed by many critics as deficient.

Continuing in the same vein, Dembski repeats his thesis, suggested by him many times before, that what he calls “specified complexity” is a necessary indicator of design. The fallacy of that statement was demonstrated more than once (for example in [4,5]). Indeed, consider an example discussed several times before. Imagine a pile of pebbles found on a river shore. Usually each of them has an irregular shape, its color varying over its surface, and often its density also varying over its volume. There are no two pebbles which are identical in shape, color and density distribution. I guess even Dembski would not argue that the irregular shape, color and density distribution of a particular pebble resulted from intelligent design, regardless of how complex these shapes and distributions may happen to be. Each pebble formed by chance. Now, what if among the pebbles we find one which has a perfectly spherical shape, with an ideally uniform distribution of color and density?  Not too many people would deny that this piece in all likelihood is a product of design. However, it is much simpler than any other pebble, if, of course, complexity is defined in a logically consistent manner rather than in Dembski’s idiosyncratic way. A logically consistent definition of complexity is given, for example, in the algorithmic theory of randomness-probability-complexity (and is often referred to as Kolmogorov complexity).  Kolmogorov complexity of a perfectly spherical piece of stone is much lower than it is for any other pebble having irregular shape and non-uniform distribution of density and color.  Indeed, to describe the perfectly spherical piece one needs a very simple program (or algorithm), actually limited to just one number for the sphere’s diameter, one number for density and a brief indication of color. For a piece of irregular shape, the program necessarily must be much longer, as it requires many numbers to reproduce the complex shape and the distributions of density and of color. This is a very simple example of the fallacy of Dembski’s thesis according to which design is indicated by “specified complexity.”  Actually, in this example (as well as in an endless number of other situations) it is simplicity which seems to point to design while complexity seems to indicate the chance as the antecedent cause of the item’s characteristics.

            That is about all Dembski chose to discuss in his presentation with regard to the substance of the dispute. Instead, Dembski dabbles in prophecy. His argument in favor of ID mainly boils down to the references to polls which show that the majority of Americans believe in some form of creationism. This may be true. However, Dembski himself gives an example of astrology which is no less popular in America than ID, but this by no means makes astrology plausible. Dembski is not arguing in his presentation that ID will win the minds because it is true. It will win, predicts Dembski, because the American public is predisposed to believe in ID. The same may be true though for astrology and other fads and fallacies he himself listed as being widespread despite their contradicting scientific data.

One more argument by Dembski is that young people are inclined to take the side of innovators, and, since ID-ists are the new guys in town, the sympathy of the younger generation will be with them, thus ensuring their victory. Maybe so. What does it have to do with the merits of ID “theory?” If scientific theories were accepted or rejected by a popular vote, or just by the vote of young people, quantum mechanics, the general theory of relativity and a whole bunch of other great achievements of the human mind would never have had a chance to take their legitimate place in the progress of humankind.

On page 4 Dembski argues that his ID theory is “not a crank theory (at least not one that is obviously so).”  The sole argument Dembski offers in favor of that statement is that Paul Davies “thinks that it’s onto something important,” thus disagreeing with those who, like Wesley Elsberry, “think it merely codifies the argument from ignorance.”  This seems to be a rather weak argument, even by Dembski’s standards. The reference to Davies can be interpreted in various ways and is far from endorsing ID as a real scientific theory. Moreover, so what if Davies or any other writer has indeed said something which can somehow be interpreted charitably regarding Dembski’s ideas?  The position whose strength can be sustained only by such ambiguous references is weak indeed and can be suspected of being crank science with a high degree of likelihood. If all Dembski can say in support of his views is that somebody thinks it has “something to it,” it raises a suspicion that he has no factual evidence favoring his suppositions. To show that certain ideas or theories indeed belong in real rather than crank science, one has to subject those ideas to merciless tests, wherein evidence supporting these ideas can be reproduced and independently verified. Dembski and his colleagues in the ID “movement” not only did not ever produce such evidence which could be independently verified, but in fact offered no evidence at all despite having a substantial financial support and a substantial fighting force at their Discovery Institute of Seattle. Instead of supporting his theory by factual evidence and arguments of substance, all Dembski was able to do was to resort to a dubious reference which proves nothing and is largely irrelevant. That is the tenor of Dembski’s entire presentation.

In a similar manner, Dembski plays with other quotations allegedly supporting his thesis, like a quotation from Mencken on page 2, juxtaposed with a quotation from Gould, which, Dembski implies, contradict each other. These two quotations may or may not contradict each other (and actually they were relating to different situations and therefore their juxtaposition was meaningless). It is, however, always possible to mine a host of quotations on every subject and pretend that they prove something even if they are not relevant to each other in any way.  Such play with mutually irrelevant quotations confirms the suspicion that Dembski has no real arguments which would be necessary in a talk to an audience not consisting of such ID adherents who would happily swallow anything seemingly confirming their already held preconceptions.

One of the main points stressed by Dembski in his presentation is the assertion that Intelligent Design, unlike such fringe pseudo-science as astrology and the like, has by now become firmly “mainstream” in science.  In this, Dembski depicts the desired as if it is real. So far, the overwhelming majority of mainstream scientists ignore ID as can be seen by searching through the scientific literature. Practically no scientific magazine has published articles by scientists wherein a discussion of ID and related matters could be found. No references to ID can be found in the mainstream peer-reviewed scientific publications. The ID advocates either publish their productions as popular or semi-popular books and collections by non-scientific publishers or in their own periodicals mostly connected to their Discovery Institute. The only exception seems to be Dembski’s monograph [2] published by the Cambridge University Press. Even this book, reportedly, was Dembski’s doctoral dissertation in philosophy rather than in science.  Regardless of how many times Dembski will repeat his mantra about “mainstreaming” ID, the scientific community has not and will not accept the claims by ID-ists unless and until he and his colleagues present real data supporting their contentions.  So far no such data have been presented. 

            The overall level of Dembski’s acerbic assault on skeptics can be exemplified by his comment that the letters COP in the abbreviation CSICOP are “not accidental.” Is this so?  In the absence of real arguments, they may be sometimes replaced with attempts at being witty by using irrelevant puns. Dembski wants the readers to believe that the organization of skeptics is like police trying to muzzle its opponents. Somehow he does not notice the absurdity of such an accusation given the fact that he and his cohort Nelson are freely presenting their views at the meeting organized by the same CSICOP which allegedly is out to prevent the IDists from presenting their views.

            Maybe in his actual talk Demski said something beyond the irrelevant discussion of the prospects for ID versus evolution to win the minds of masses? It does not seem to be the case. According to the reports by the attendees of the conference, in his actual talk Dembski did not say anything beyond the immaterial quasi-arguments of his posted piece [1]. (This can also be verified by viewing the video tape of the session in question, available from CSICOP).              

            Let me list some of the items that were discussed by Dembski’s critics (a partial list of critical reviews of Dembki’s literary production includes, but not limited to [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17]). To some of his critics Dembski never replied in any form. To some others he responded (for example in his latest book [3]) with superficial and largely irrelevant arguments, but he never really replied to the substance of a number of points listed below, which constitute essential elements of his theory.

            Dembski asserted that complexity is tantamount to low probability. This assertion was rebuffed more than by one of the listed critics. Dembski never replied to that critique.

            Dembski asserted that his Explanatory Filter never produces “false positives.” This assertion was rebuffed by several of the listed (as well as by some not listed) critics. Dembski never replied to them.  (It can be argued though that in his latest book [3] Dembski by implication concedes that false positives can be produced by his Explanatory Filter after all but he still does not admit this explicitly).

            Dembski announced a supposedly new important law – the so-called Law of Conservation of Information. More than one critic argued that the law in question does not exist. Dembski never replied to those critics.

            Dembski widely used a concept of what he called Specified Complexity. More than one critic argued that the concept in question is meaningless in the sense it has been used by Dembski. The latter never replied to this critique.

            The same can be said about Dembski’s concept of Complex Specified Information (CSI).

            Dembski insists that design can be reliably inferred if low probability of an event is combined with its specification. More than one among the listed critics argued that the specification as defined by Dembski has no reasonable interpretation. Dembski never responded to that critique.

            There are other items claimed by Dembski, subjected to critique to which Dembski never responded while he continues to promote the same criticized concepts and assertions.

In his presentation, Dembski condescendingly suggested a program of action for skeptics if the latter wish to defend their position against ID. In his uncompromising self-confidence Dembski seems not to realize that if he suggests a new, allegedly revolutionary theory, the burden of proof is on him and on his colleagues in the ID camp.  It is ID-ists who need to provide evidence, any evidence, in support of their position. It is precisely the absence of evidence for the ID theory that makes skeptics (read: mainstream scientists) to reject ID as an unsubstantiated attempt to overturn the facts established by science. If Dembski or any of his colleagues showed any reasonable evidence supporting their views, then, beyond doubts, scientists would be much more receptive in regard to their theory. So far this has not happened. Therefore, rather than suggesting what skeptics should do to defend their views from the assault by ID, Dembski should better think of how to search for any believable proof of his own so far arbitrary and dubious assertions.

            By inviting Dembski and Nelson to give talks at the 4^th World Skeptics Conference, its organizers offered Dembski a chance to reply to his critics on the matters of substance and to defend his position in front of a diversified audience, mostly not very friendly to his views. By taking the floor at the conference in question, Dembski put himself in an unenviable position of denying a simple fact obvious to all – he was complaining about skeptic’s suppressing his views while speaking to the same skeptics who provided to him the forum. 

I would like to thank Brian Spitzer, Pete Dunkelberg, and Wesley Elsberry for constructive remarks regarding the initial version of this article.

REFERENCES

[1]  William A. Dembski, [online], Skepticism’s Prospects for Unseating Intelligent Design,  http://www.iscid.org/papers/Dembski_SkepticismsProspects_062102.pdf , accessed on June 22, 2002.

[2] William A. Dembski, The Design Inference, (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

[3] William A. Dembski, No Free Lunch – Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence, (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, 2002).

[4] Mark Perakh, A Consistent Inconsistency, [online], www.talkreason.org/articles/dembski.cfm , accessed on June 22, 2002

[5] Mark Perakh, A Free Lunch in a Mousetrap, [online], www.talkreason.org/articles/dem_nfl.cfm , accessed on June 22, 2002

[6] Richard Wein, [online], http://website.lineone.net/~rwein/skeptic/whatswrong.htm , accessed on November 22, 2001

 [7] Richard Wein, Not a Free Lunch But a Box of Chocolate, [online]. www.talkreason.org/articles/choc_nfl.cfm , accessed on June 22, 2002.

[8] Matt Young, [online], www.pcts.org/journal/young2002a.html , accessed on March 10, 2002.

[9] Victor J. Stenger, [online], http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Found/04MessageW.pdf , accessed on January 17, 2002.

[10] Robert T. Pennock, Tower of Babel (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000).

[11] Taner Edis, [online], www.csicop.org/si/2001-03/intelligent-design.html , accessed on January 17, 2002.

[12] Eli Chiprout, [online] www.talkreason.org/articles/Chiprout.cfm , accessed on May 25, 2002

[13] Wesley R. Elsberry, [online], www.infidels.org/library/modern/science/creationism/dembski.htm , accessed on November 22, 2001

[14] Wesley R. Elsberry, [online], www.talkreason.org/articles/inference.cfm , accessed on June 22, 2002.

[15] Thomas D. Schneider, [online], www.lecb.ncifcif.gov/~toms/paper/ev/dembski/claimtest.html , accessed on November 22, 2001.

[16] Branden Fitelson, Christopher Stephens and Elliott Sober, Philosophy of Science, 66,  (1999): 472.

[17] John S. Wilkins and Wesley R. Elsberry, The Advantages of Theft over Toil: The Design Inference and Arguing From Ignorance, Biology and Philosophy, v.16, 711 (2001).