In his second major treatise on design theory, No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence, William Dembski discusses searches and targets. One of his main points is that the ability to reach a target in a vast space of possibilities is an indicator of design. A sufficiently complex target that satisfies an independent specification, he argues, creates a pattern that, when observed, satisfies the Design Filter. There are rigorous mathematical and logical proofs of this concept in the book, but at one point, he uses an illustration even a child can understand.

Consider the case of an archer. Suppose an archer stands fifty meters from a large wall with a bow and arrow in hand. The wall, let us say, is sufficiently large that the archer cannot help but hit it. Now suppose each time the archer shoots an arrow at the wall, the archer paints a target around the arrow so that the arrow sits squarely in the bull’s-eye. What can be concluded from this scenario? Absolutely nothing about the archer’s ability as an archer. Yes, a pattern is being matched; but it is a pattern fixed only after the arrow has been shot. The pattern is thus purely ad hoc. [No Free Lunch, pp. 9-10, emphasis added.]

Most people have experience with target shooting of some kind, whether with bows and arrows, guns (including squirt guns), snowballs, darts, or most sports like baseball, soccer, basketball, hockey, and football. Children laugh when they picture an archer who “couldn’t even hit the broadside of a barn” and rushes up to the arrow and paints a bull’s-eye around it. Grown-ups might compare that to a biologist looking at an irreducibly complex biological system and simply stating, “It evolved.” In each of these cases, Dembski would say that since the pattern was not independently specified, therefore it is ad hoc. He continues:

But suppose instead the archer paints a fixed target on the wall and then shoots at it. Suppose the archer shoots 100 arrows, and each time hits a perfect bull’s-eye. What can be concluded from this second scenario? Confronted with this occurrence, we are obligated to infer that here is a world-class archer, one whose shots cannot legitimately be attributed to luck but rather to the archer’s skill and mastery. Skill and mastery are, of course, instances of design.

That last sentence is important. We often think of intelligent design in terms of information content, but a little reflection shows why skill and mastery are equivalent design indicators. Why does the archer practice so long and hard, shooting thousands of arrows, until he has mastered the mental and physical control required to hit the bull’s-eye? Because he has a goal: he seeks to become a world-class champion at the sport. Darwinian evolution, by contrast, has no goal or purpose.

So when we see evidence of skill and mastery that could not be attributed to luck, we have a reliable indicator of design. Everyone “gets” the design inference in the archery illustration, and since target shooting is popular and fun, it gives us a great way to explain design principles. You could try this in the context of a discussion with your children. It might be illuminating for some of your adult friends and family too.

Get a blackboard or something similar. Buy Nerf balls and coat them with colored chalk. Now let a volunteer throw a ball at the board. Assuming she hits it somewhere, rush up and draw a target around the spot with the spot in the center of the bull’s-eye. Immediately praise her for what a great shot she is until everyone is laughing. “That’s cheating!” someone is bound to complain. You respond, “But she hit the bull’s-eye, didn’t she? Isn’t that how we tell a good shooter?”

Now draw a large target after erasing the old one. Let others throw the balls at it. Ask what the difference was between this and the earlier contest. Whatever the age level or circumstances, there are three principles you want to convey that Dembski says are essential for inferring design:

1. A reference class of possible events (here the arrow hitting the wall at some specified place);

2. A pattern that restricts the reference class of possible events (here a target on the wall);

3. The precise event that has occurred (here the arrow hitting the target at some precise location).

Translating that into kid lingo, you might say, “You’re not a good shot by hitting just anything. You have to hit a target set up beforehand.”

Now it’s time to up the ante a bit. Erase the large target and draw a smaller one. Undoubtedly fewer shooters will get their mark inside this new challenge. Proceed by narrowing the target until you have drawn one so small it is hardly visible, and require the marksman to stand a good distance away. Anyone hitting that is likely to get a standing ovation!

As a final demonstration, blindfold one of your subjects, spin him around, and have him take a random shot in any direction (best use an uncoated nerf ball this time). After two or three humorous attempts, ask what’s the chance he would hit the microscopic target? Someone might say it’s possible (and it is). Then ask, what are the chances he could hit it 100 times in a row? What would you think if you saw that?

Kids love videos of incredible feats of target shooting. You might put together a string of them from all walks of life:

1. Someone making a full-court buzzer-beater basketball shot.

2. A stuntman zipping between rocks in a wingsuit.

3. Odysseus shooting an arrow through 12 axe handles.

4. Annie Oakley shooting glass balls at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, or splitting a card in two shooting over her shoulder while looking in a mirror.

5. A mountain man throwing tomahawks or knives from a distance.

6. A human cannonball.

7. Motorcycle jumper landing on a building.

8. Barnstorming pilots flying through a hangar.

But to conclude, we need to consider the cases where we didn’t observe the target being hit. This is where we can use the design inference for life, the Earth, and the universe.

The key to this design inference is to characterize the “reference class of possibilities” Dembski spoke of. When you have a large range of possibilities, but only one or a few that will work, you can infer design when you see something that is working:

1. Of the possible amino acid sequences, only a small number will fold into a functional protein.

2. Of the possible orbiting bodies, only a small number can support complex intelligent life (see our film Privileged Species for examples).

3. Of the possible parameters of physics, only a small number can support a habitable universe.

When we observe functional proteins, inhabited planets, and a working universe, therefore, we are justified in inferring that an intelligent cause was involved in their origin — provided the target is sufficiently small as to rule out luck or natural causes. Here’s an illustration Jay Richards gives in the film The Case for a Creator that brings us back to the subject of target shooting. In a discussion of the finely tuned parameters that make our universe habitable, Dr. Richards points out that the cosmological constant is fine-tuned to 1 part in 10⁵³ (one part in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion).

Such precision has been compared to traveling hundreds of miles into space, then throwing a dart at the Earth, hitting a bull’s-eye measuring one trillionth of a trillionth of an inch in diameter, an area less than the width of a single atom.

Rigorous evidential, mathematical, and philosophical justification for the design inference is published in scholarly books by Dembski, Meyer, Wells, and others. It’s necessary to have that foundation for intelligent design to be a scientific theory, but some of it is above the pay grade of the layman. Consider using pithy illustrations like target shooting to help a range of people, including your kids, “get” the meaning of intelligent design.

Image: � Kagenmi / Dollar Photo Club.