William A. Dembski

Chances are you’re already familiar with specified complexity, one of the mathematical pillars of the theory of intelligent design. There’s another pillar that is much less well known but equally vital: the law of conservation of information. On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid begins a four-part conversation with mathematician and philosopher Dr. William Dembski. The conversation unpacks Dembski’s work on the law of conservation of information and its implications for scientific theories like Darwinian evolution. In Part 1, Dr. Dembski begins by defining information fundamentally as the narrowing of possibilities, where specifying one outcome excludes others. Using his a simple analogy of location, he explains that identifying a specific place, like the town of Aubrey, Texas, provides more Read More ›

How does AI stack up when it comes to accurately representing the theory of intelligent design? Today, host Andrew McDiarmid speaks with mathematician and philosopher Dr. William Dembski about the reliability and accuracy of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Bard, particularly concerning intelligent design. This second half of the conversation highlights the importance of independent verification when using AI, as LLMs can “hallucinate” or generate false or biased information. Dembski advises an approach of verify, then trust, turning the old Russian proverb on its head. McDiarmid and Dembski also explore the potential for AI to enhance human capabilities and education if used judiciously, rather than becoming a crutch that erodes critical thinking. But that will require that we Read More ›

On this ID the Future, mathematician William Dembski and host Eric Anderson explore whether design detection tools shed any light on the recent chess scandal involving world chess champion Magnus Carlsen and American grandmaster Hans Moke Niemann. Did Niemann cheat in a match where he beat Carlson, as some have claimed? There is no smoking gun in the case, so how might one determine if cheating occurred? At first glance the problem might seem far removed from the design detecting rules and tools Dembski laid out in his Cambridge University Press monograph The Design Inference. But actually there is some intriguing overlap. Is there a way to dig into the chess data and determine whether Niemann secretly used a computer chess engine to Read More ›

On this ID the Future, mathematician and philosopher William Dembski shares with host Eric Anderson about a revised and updated edition of Dembski’s pioneering 1998 Cambridge University Press book, The Design Inference. Dembski says he stands by that work and his early contributions to intelligent design theory, but adds that he has learned a lot more in the intervening years, particularly from his work with Robert J. Marks and Winston Ewert at the Evolutionary Informatics lab. Lessons from that and other work, Dembski explains, will enrich the new edition. What light do these design-detecting methods shed on modern evolutionary theory? Tune in as Dembski explains.