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For Your Labor Day Enjoyment – Dembski on Design Detection in Just Three Minutes

Dembski

We last checked in with Robert Lawrence Kuhn of the PBS series Closer to Truth as he interviewed physicist and Nobel laureate Brian Josephson who said he was “80 percent” sure of intelligent design. (BOOM.)

These aren’t brand new interviews by Kuhn, but still very interesting – and concise. Now, submitted for your Labor Day enjoyment, here’s one (click on the image above), pointed out by a Facebook friend, with mathematician William Dembski. Dr. Dembski briefly defines the method of detecting intelligent design. It is, he says, a form of triangulation on the effects of intelligence, namely contingency, complexity, and specification. The last of those refers to the question of “Does it conform to some sort of independently given pattern?”

Kuhn, not an ID proponent as far as I know, shrewdly notes that ID doesn’t seek to “prove” God, of the Bible or any other gods, but it is consistent with what you’d expect from a Deity. I find that distinction to be stubbornly lost on many ID critics.

All this in just over three minutes. Speaking of Labor Day, nice job!

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

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Brian JosephsonCloser to TruthcomplexitycontingencyDeityGodgod'sintelligent designLabor DaymathematicsNobel PrizephysicsRobert Lawrence KuhnspecificationtriangulationWilliam Dembski