Books | Discovery Institute

^{William A. Dembski and Winston Ewert
November 16, 2023
Intelligent Design}

The Design Inference

_{William A. Dembski and Winston Ewert
November 16, 2023
Intelligent Design}

A landmark of the intelligent design movement, The Design Inference revolutionized our understanding of how we detect intelligent causation. Originally published twenty-five years ago, it has now been revised and expanded into a second edition that greatly sharpens its exploration of design inferences. Read More ›

^{William A. Dembski
February 1, 2007
Intelligent Design}

No Free Lunch

_{William A. Dembski
February 1, 2007
Intelligent Design}

No Free Lunch, the sequel to mathematician and philosopher William Dembski's Cambridge University Press book The Design Inference, explores key questions about the origin of specified complexity. Dembski explains that the Darwinian search mechanism of random mutation coupled with natural selection is incapable of generating novel complex, specified information (CSI).

This observation translates into "No Free Lunch" (NFL) theorems, which Dembski explains are inherent constraints upon natural systems. Natural Darwinian mechanisms can shuffle this information around, but only intelligence can generate novel CSI. In other words, when it comes to generating truly novel biological complexity, Darwin can have no free lunch...