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Specified Complexity
Specified complexity is a creationist argument introduced by William Dembski, used by advocates to promote the pseudoscience of intelligent design. According to Dembski, the concept can formalize a property that singles out patterns that are both ''specified'' and ''complex'', where in Dembski's terminology, a ''specified'' pattern is one that admits short descriptions, whereas a ''complex'' pattern is one that is unlikely to occur by chance. Proponents of intelligent design use specified complexity as one of their two main arguments, alongside irreducible complexity. Dembski argues that it is impossible for specified complexity to exist in patterns displayed by configurations formed by unguided processes. Therefore, Dembski argues, the fact that specified complex patterns can be found in living things indicates some kind of guidance in their formation, which is indicative of intelligence. Dembski further argues that one can rigorously show by applying no-free-lunch theorems the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Dembski
William Albert Dembski (born July 18, 1960) is an American mathematician, philosopher and theologian. He was a proponent of intelligent design (ID) pseudoscience, specifically the concept of specified complexity, and was a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC). On September 23, 2016, he officially retired from intelligent design, resigning all his "formal associations with the ID community, including isDiscovery Institute fellowship of 20 years". A February 2021 interview in the CSC's blog '' Evolution News'' announced "his return to the intelligent design arena". In 2012, he taught as the ''Phillip E. Johnson Research Professor of Science and Culture'' at the Southern Evangelical Seminary in Matthews, North Carolina near Charlotte. Dembski has written books about intelligent design, including '' The Design Inference'' (1998), '' Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology'' (1999), ''The Design Revolution'' (2004), ''T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural Selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charles Darwin popularised the term "natural selection", contrasting it with selective breeding, artificial selection, which in his view is intentional, whereas natural selection is not. Genetic diversity, Variation exists within all populations of organisms. This occurs partly because random mutations arise in the genome of an individual organism, and their offspring can inherit such mutations. Throughout the lives of the individuals, their genomes interact with their environments to cause variations in traits. The environment of a genome includes the molecular biology in the Cell (biology), cell, other cells, other individuals, populations, species, as well as the abiotic environment. Because individuals with certain variants of the trait tend ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Origins-of-life Research
In biology, abiogenesis (from a- 'not' + Greek bios 'life' + genesis 'origin') or the origin of life is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living to living entities on Earth was not a single event, but an evolutionary process of increasing complexity that involved the formation of a habitable planet, the prebiotic synthesis of organic molecules, molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autocatalysis, and the emergence of cell membranes. Many proposals have been made for different stages of the process. The study of abiogenesis aims to determine how pre-life chemical reactions gave rise to life under conditions strikingly different from those on Earth today. It primarily uses tools from biology and chemistry, with more recent approaches attempting a synthesis of many sciences. Life functions through the specialized chemistry of carbon and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-organization
Self-organization, also called spontaneous order in the social sciences, is a process where some form of overall order arises from local interactions between parts of an initially disordered system. The process can be spontaneous when sufficient energy is available, not needing control by any external agent. It is often triggered by seemingly random fluctuations, amplified by positive feedback. The resulting organization is wholly decentralized, distributed over all the components of the system. As such, the organization is typically robust and able to survive or self-repair substantial perturbation. Chaos theory discusses self-organization in terms of islands of predictability in a sea of chaotic unpredictability. Self-organization occurs in many physical, chemical, biological, robotic, and cognitive systems. Examples of self-organization include crystallization, thermal convection of fluids, chemical oscillation, animal swarming, neural circuits, and black markets. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Law Of Conservation
In physics, a conservation law states that a particular measurable property of an isolated physical system does not change as the system evolves over time. Exact conservation laws include conservation of energy, conservation of linear momentum, conservation of angular momentum, and conservation of electric charge. There are also many approximate conservation laws, which apply to such quantities as mass, parity, lepton number, baryon number, strangeness, hypercharge, etc. These quantities are conserved in certain classes of physics processes, but not in all. A local conservation law is usually expressed mathematically as a continuity equation, a partial differential equation which gives a relation between the amount of the quantity and the "transport" of that quantity. It states that the amount of the conserved quantity at a point or within a volume can only change by the amount of the quantity which flows in or out of the volume. From Noether's theorem, each conservation law is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holism
Holism () is the idea that various systems (e.g. physical, biological, social) should be viewed as wholes, not merely as a collection of parts. The term "holism" was coined by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book ''Holism and Evolution''."holism, n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, September 2019, www.oed.com/view/Entry/87726. Accessed 23 October 2019. While his ideas had racist connotations, the modern use of the word generally refers to treating a person as an integrated whole, rather than as a collection of separate systems. For example, well-being may be regarded as not merely physical health, but also psychological and spiritual well-being. Meaning The exact meaning of "holism" depends on context. Jan Smuts originally used "holism" to refer to the tendency in nature to produce wholes from the ordered grouping of unit structures. However, in common usage, "holism" usually refers to the idea that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts.J. C. Poynton (1987) SMUTS'S HOLISM AND EVOL ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physical Law
Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. The term ''law'' has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) across all fields of natural science (physics, chemistry, astronomy, geoscience, biology). Laws are developed from data and can be further developed through mathematics; in all cases they are directly or indirectly based on empirical evidence. It is generally understood that they implicitly reflect, though they do not explicitly assert, causal relationships fundamental to reality, and are discovered rather than invented. Scientific laws summarize the results of experiments or observations, usually within a certain range of application. In general, the accuracy of a law does not change when a new theory of the relevant phenomenon is worked out, but rather the scope of the law's application, since the mathematics or statement representing the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Answering The Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design
Answer commonly refers to response to a question. Answer may also refer to: * Answer (law), any reply to a question, counter-statement or defense in a legal procedure Music * Answer, an element of a fugue Albums * ''Answer'' (Angela Aki album), 2009 * ''Answer'' (Supercar album), 2004 * ''Answers'' (album), 1994 * ''The Answers'', an album by Blue October Songs * "Answer" (Tohoshinki song) * "Answer" (Flow song), 2007 *"Answer", by Tyler, the Creator from the album ''Wolf'' *"Answer", by Sarah McLachlan from her 2003 album ''Afterglow'' *"Answer", by Mayu Maeshima, opening song from the 2021 anime ''Full Dive'' Publications * ''Answers'' (periodical), British weekly paper founded in 1888, initially titled ''Answers to Correspondents'' *''Answer'', a very short science-fiction story published in 1954 by Fredric Brown. *''Answers'', an American magazine published by Answers in Genesis * ''The Questionnaire'' (Salomon novel), also published as "The Answers" Groups, organiza ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Universal Probability Bound
A universal probability bound is a probabilistic threshold whose existence is asserted by William A. Dembski and is used by him in his works promoting intelligent design. It is defined as Dembski asserts that one can effectively estimate a positive value which is a universal probability bound. The existence of such a bound would imply that certain kinds of random events whose probability lies below this value can be assumed not to have occurred in the observable universe, given the resources available in the entire history of the observable universe. Contrapositively, Dembski uses the threshold to argue that the occurrence of certain events cannot be attributed to chance alone. Universal probability bound is then used to argue against random evolution. However evolution is not based on random events only (genetic drift), but also on natural selection. The idea that events with fantastically small, but positive probabilities, are ''effectively'' negligible was discussed by the Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
No Free Lunch (book)
"No such thing as a free lunch" (alternatively, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch", "There is no such thing as a free lunch" or other variants) is a popular adage communicating the idea that it is impossible to get something for nothing. The acronyms TANSTAAFL, TINSTAAFL, and TNSTAAFL are also used. The phrase was in use by the 1930s, but its first appearance is unknown. The "free lunch" in the saying refers to the formerly common practice in American bars of offering a "free lunch" in order to entice drinking customers. The phrase and the acronym are central to Robert A. Heinlein's 1966 science-fiction novel ''The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress'', which helped popularize it. The free-market economist Milton Friedman also increased its exposure and useSafire, William, ''The New York Times'', 2-14-199"On Language; Words Left Out in the Cold" /ref> by paraphrasing it as the title of a 1975 book,Friedman, Milton, ''There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch'', Open Court Publishing Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Design Inference
''The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities'' is a 1998 book by American philosopher and mathematician William A. Dembski, a proponent of intelligent design, which sets out to establish approaches by which evidence of intelligent agency could be inferred in natural and social situations. In the book he distinguishes between 3 general modes of competing explanations in order of priority: regularity, chance, and design. The processes in which regularity, chance, and design are ruled out one by one until one remains as a reasonable and sufficient explanation for an event, are what he calls an "explanatory filter". It is a method that tries to eliminate competing explanations in a systematic fashion including when a highly improbable event conforms to a discernible pattern that is given independently of the event itself. This pattern is Dembski's concept of specified complexity. Throughout the book he uses diverse examples such as detectability of spontaneous ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Davies
Paul Charles William Davies (born 22 April 1946) is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, a professor in Arizona State University and Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He is affiliated with the Institute for Quantum Studies in Chapman University in California. He previously held academic appointments in the University of Cambridge, University College London, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, University of Adelaide and Macquarie University. His research interests are in the fields of cosmology, quantum field theory, and astrobiology. In 2005, he took up the chair of the SETI: Post-Detection Science and Technology Taskgroup of the International Academy of Astronautics. Davies serves on the Advisory Council of METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Education Born on 22 April 1946, Davies was brought up in Finchley, London. He attended Woodhouse Grammar School and studied physics at University College London, gaining a Bachelor o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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