Dr. Dembski has taught at Northwestern University, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas. He has done postdoctoral work in mathematics at MIT, in physics at the University of Chicago, and in computer science at Princeton University. A graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago where he earned a B.A. in psychology, an M.S. in statistics, and a Ph.D. in philosophy, he also received a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1988 and a master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1996. He has held National Science Foundation graduate and postdoctoral fellowships.
The lecture:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Summary (snark is in italics)
What is evolution:
Is it enough for Christian students to just retain their faith in college?
Or should Christian students seek to transform their universities?
The word “evolution” refers to a unguided, purposeless, undirected process
Living organisms are not designed, they just appear to be designed
Therefore, it is an atheistic theory – there is NO ROOM for God
Random variations and natural selection can do the creating of life without God
Nothing about evolution suggest that God had anything to do with it
The appearance of design:
The cell is a nano-engineered information processing system.
The cell has engineering, e.g. – signal transduction, message passing, etc.
There are molecular machines similar to man-made machines, but less efficient
E.g. – the bacterial flagellum which has 40 parts
These molecular machines have minimal complexity – all the parts are needed
can’t build a molecular machine step-by-step – all the parts must be present and integrated
How does evolution try to explain molecular machines:
The standard naturalistic response is “co-option”
Each intermediate step has pieces that are used for other purposes
I.e. – Subsets of the parts can have different functions
For example, a subset of the bacterial flagellum can be used as a syringe
The subset, called the Type-3 secretory system, has only 13 parts
The problem is that evolutionists don’t show all the steps, and all the functions
For this to be a good response, you need a smooth path from 1 part up to 40
Each step of the path has to have a working system with a different function
But the atheists don’t have the path, or the intermediate functions
It’s like arguing that you can walk from Seattle to Tokyo via the Hawaiian islands
Is the bacterial flagellum a cherry-picked example?
There are no detailed molecular pathways for any biochemical systems in the cell
The atheistic response is to speculate that pathways will be found as science progresses
The pathways are unobservable entities, just like the multiverse and the Cambrian precursors
Where does the machinery to create proteins come from?
The molecular machines are composed of proteins
The proteins are manufactured by copying protein-building instructions from the DNA
The instructions are carried to the build site by messenger RNA
The build site is called a ribosome
The DNA requires proteins to build, so there is a chicken-and-egg problem
The problem is that protein transcription systems require everything in place
There is no materialistic theory about how to build this step-by-step
So what do the molecular machines tell us about how life began?
The problem of the origin of life is the problem of the origin of information
What needs to be explained are the functional sequences of parts
The sequences are identical to sequences of letters that make sense
The atheist has to say that material processes can create the information
The problem of finding sequences of amino acids or proteins is a search problem
A blind search of the space of possible sequences is not efficient
even with lots time, parts and trials, you can’t converge on functional proteins
information is required and the only known producer of information is a mind
Bill is one of my favorite people. He’s smarter than practically all of the atheists who dominate the universities. But because he is an outspoken Christian, he never gets the recognition he deserves. He just keeps plugging away on his research. He doesn’t make excuses.
Illustra also made two other great DVDs on intelligent design. The first two DVDs “Unlocking the Mystery of Life” and “The Privileged Planet” are must-buys, but you can watch them on youtube if you want, for free.
William (Bill) Dembski is an American mathematician, theologian and professor of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, TX. He debates the issue of ID with atheist Lewis Wolpert, Emeritus Professor of Biology at University College London.
Dembski says then you’re just a dogmatic reductionist
Wolpert agrees that he is a dogmatic reductionist
Second half:
Dembski explains why intelligent is not repackaged creationism
Dembski explains why intelligent design isn’t an argument from ignorance
Dembski talks about whether evolutionary mechanisms can create more information
Wolpert asks whether chemistry requires intelligent design too
Dembski says that there is a fine-tuning argument for cosmological constants too
Wolpert agrees that the origin of life is unexplained naturalistically
Wolpert asks if everything after the origin of life is explained
Dembski says that there are still problems like the Cambrian explosion
Wolpert asks Dembski if anything could falsify intelligent design
Dembski gives an example of something that could falsify intelligent design
Dembski asks whether naturalistic explanations of life are falsifiable
Wolpert asks whether intelligent design affects the way that people do science
Dembski asks whether it is possible that the resources of naturalism are adequate to explain life
Wolpert says that you can’t explain anything in nature as the result of intelligence
Dembski says that it happens all the time in other sciences like engineering
Wolpert says that he doesn’t want a Designer
Dembski says we should just follow the evidence and who cares what people on either side want
And then there are closing speeches.
I am not sure if I had anything to do with this, but I did send Justin Bill’s e-mail address recently. I’m pretty happy that Justin managed to get Bill and Lewis to debate on this topic. Justin says that Bill will be back next week! He’ll be discussing his new book “The End of Christianity” which is about the problem of evil.
UPDATE: Justin says that it was indeed my e-mail that helped him to contact Bill, and what’s more we should expect a show that features Stephen C. Meyer soon, too!
WINTERY KNIGHT 