2005

Mark Perakh, "Dembski "displaces Darwinism" mathematically -- or does he?" (2005)

Mark Perakh briefly reviews a recent article by William Dembski (http://www.designinference.com/documents/2005.03.Searching_Large_Spaces.pdf) and shows that, contrary to Dembski's claims, it cannot serve as part of the mathematical foundation of intelligent design. Among several serious faults of Demsbki's paper is his view of biological evolution as a search for a small target in a large search space. In fact, biological evolution is not searching for a target. Probabilities calculated by Dembski, for example, for "finding" a specific protein in the space of all possible proteins of a given length are irrelevant because evolution is not "searching" for a predetermined specific protein. Likewise, Dembski's "displacement problem" (which in his new article is in fact not identical to the problem of the same name as rendered by Dembski in his earlier publications) is equally irrelevant for evolution, since the latter conducts no target-oriented searches. --- http://www.talkreason.org/articles/newmath.cfm

Geoff Brumfiel, "Intelligent design: Who has designs on your students' minds?" (2005)

"Nature" 28 April 2005, vol. 434, s. 1062-1065; http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7037/full/4341062a.html --- Abstract --- The intelligent-design movement is a small but growing force on US university campuses. For some it bridges the gap between science and faith, for others it goes beyond the pale. Geoff Brumfiel meets the movement's vanguard.