William A. Dembski

Board of Directors, Discovery Institute

Archives

Artificial Intelligence: Unseating the Inevitability Narrative

World-class chess, Go, and Jeopardy-playing programs are impressive, but they prove nothing about whether computers can be made to achieve AGI
William A. Dembski
April 19, 2021
Back in 1998, I moderated a discussion at which Ray Kurzweil gave listeners a preview of his then forthcoming book The Age of Spiritual Machines, in which he described how machines were poised to match and then exceed human cognition, a theme he doubled down on in subsequent books (such as The Singularity Is Near and How to Create a Mind). For Kurzweil, it is inevitable that machines will match and then exceed us: Moore’s Law guarantees that machines will attain the needed computational power to simulate our brains, after which the challenge will be for us to keep pace with machines..  Kurzweil’s respondents at the discussion were John Searle, Thomas Ray, and Michael Denton, and they were all to varying degrees critical of his strong Read More ›

How Humans Can Thrive in a World of Increasing Automation

Remarks on the purpose and goals of the Walter Bradley Center at its launch
William A. Dembski
July 17, 2018
At the official launch of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence, July 11, 2018, design theorist design theorist William Dembski offered three key thoughts on the center’s purpose and goals—and how its work may be evaluated. Dr. Dembski was unable to attend*, so his remarks were read by the Center’s director Robert J. Marks: Good evening. Thank you for attending this launch of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. In my talk tonight, I’m going to address three points: (1) the importance of its work, (2) its likely impact, and (3) why it is appropriately named after Walter Bradley. First, however, I want to thank friends and colleagues of Seattle’s Discovery Institute for their Read More ›

William Dembski on the Gilmore & Glahn Show, pt. 3

William A. Dembski
May 30, 2015
On this episode of ID the Future, listen to part 3 of Dr. William Dembski’s interview on the Gilmore & Glahn radio show. Their conversation covers a wide range of topics, including the current state of the intelligent design movement and where the science is headed over the next decade, as well as the slowly growing number of prominent scientists and scholars who don’t accept intelligent design, but also are challenging Darwinian evolution as a failed theory.

William Dembski on the Gilmore & Glahn Show, pt. 2

William A. Dembski
May 20, 2015
On this episode of ID the Future, hear the second segment of William Dembski’s recent appearance on the Gilmore and Glahn radio show. Dembski and Gilmore discuss whether or not intelligent design is science, and what the theory’s current status is among scientists.

William Dembski on the Gilmore & Glahn Show, pt. 1

William A. Dembski
May 19, 2015
On this episode of ID the Future, William Dembski is on the Gilmore & Glahn show, where he talks with John Gilmore about the theory of, and science behind, his latest book, Being as Communion. Dembski also discusses what he views as the greatest weakness of Darwinian evolution: the information problem.

Dr. Bill Dembski: Being As Communion, pt. 2

William A. Dembski
October 20, 2014
On this episode of ID the Future hear more of John West’s interview with Dr. Bill Dembski as they discuss Dr. Dembski’s latest book Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information. Listen in as Dr. Dembski explains 3 central points at the heart of his book: the Tang problem, the problem of no, and transposition.

Information All the Way Down

Conversations with William Dembski
William A. Dembski
October 14, 2014
In this clip, William Dembski discusses information realism, the notion that the fundamental “stuff” of the world is information — not matter. An example of this is found in the recent search for the Higgs boson particle. The scatter diagram that “defined” the Higgs boson is essentially information — one pattern to the exclusion of others.

Dr. Bill Dembski: Being As Communion

William A. Dembski
October 14, 2014
On this episode of ID the Future, CSC Associate Director John West sits down with Mathematician and Philosopher Dr. Bill Dembski to discuss his new book Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information. Dr. Dembski describes his book as “trying … to make sense of the world of matter is not the most fundamental thing, but information is.” Tune in to this fascinating discussion about our understanding of information, and how it can transform our view of the world. Purchase Being as Communion at Amazon.

Dr. William Dembski: Inspired by Richard Dawkins

William A. Dembski
October 1, 2014
On this episode of ID the Future listen as Dr. William Dembski reflects on the origins of his thinking on intelligent design, acknowledging the influence of Richard Dawkins, who gave him the link between specification and complexity as a marker for ID.

How Richard Dawkins Inspired my Work on Intelligent Design

Conversations with William Dembski
William A. Dembski
September 24, 2014
In this clip, William Dembski discusses how his work on intelligent design is largely inspired by famous atheist Richard Dawkins. Dembski found Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker “insightfully wrong,” and actually based his work on trying to answer some of the issues it raises. For more information about William Dembski, or to purchase his new book Being as Communion, visit www.beingascommunion.com.

Being as Communion in Relation to Previous Work

Conversations with William Dembski
William A. Dembski
September 23, 2014
In this clip, William Dembski describes how his new book Being as Communion fits with the other books he has written. In Being as Communion Dembski creates a metaphysical backdrop or worldview that challenges the traditional materialistic framework, therefore adding context to his previous work.

The Meaning of Information

Conversations with William Dembski
William A. Dembski
September 22, 2014
In this clip, Dr. Dembski discusses the meaning of information. Dembski defines information as the “ruling out of possibilities.” By ruling a range of possibilities, you learn something. You can do science with this because you can start applying probabilities and measuring information.

A Fact Most People Don’t Know About William Dembski

Conversations with William Dembski
William A. Dembski
September 17, 2014
In this clip we learn that Dr. William Dembski received his high school diploma after having received his PhD. Watch the video to hear the story. To Learn more about William Dembski, or his new book Being As Communion, visit www.beingascommunion.com.

Being As Communion

William A. Dembski
September 11, 2014
For a thing to be real, it must be able to communicate with other things. If this is so, then the problem of being receives a straightforward resolution: to be is to be in communion. So the fundamental science, indeed the science that needs to underwrite all other sciences, is a theory of communication. Within such a theory of communication Read More ›

Darwin’s Dead Idea and the Man Who Helped Kill It

An Interview with William Dembski
William A. Dembski
April 1, 2012
This book contains a fascinating interview between James Barham, general editor of TheBestSchools.org, and mathematician and philosopher William Dembski, one of the pioneers of the modern intelligent design movement. Follow Dembski’s personal journey from his doubts about Western religion as a young man to his training as a mathematician and a philosopher and his rise to prominence as one of Read More ›

The Nature of Nature

Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science
Bruce Gordon
February 15, 2011
The intellectual and cultural battles now raging over theism and atheism, conservatism and secular progressivism, dualism and monism, realism and antirealism, and transcendent reality versus material reality extend even into the scientific disciplines. This stunning new volume captures this titanic clash of worldviews among those who have thought most deeply about the nature of science and of the universe itself. Read More ›

William Dembski’s Advice for Young Intelligent Design Scientists

William A. Dembski
July 28, 2010
On this episode of ID the Future, Anika Smith interviews mathematician and philosopher William Dembski on a break from teaching at Discovery Institute’s Summer Seminars on Intelligent Design. Listen in as Dr. Dembski shares his advice for young scientists interested in ID and the hope he has for the future of intelligent design.

Information and Clear Accounting in Evolution: An Interview With Dr. William Dembski

William A. Dembski
October 15, 2009
On this episode of ID the Future Casey Luskin interviews Dr. William Dembski on his new peer-reviewed paper, “Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success,” published in IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics A, Systems & Humans. Listen in as Dr. Dembski shares how his research provides accounting practices for checking out where the information in evolutionary processes is being inserted and expressed, thus holding evolutionists accountable to the fact that information is coming from an outside source. For more information, read the paper at EvoInfo.org.

William Dembski on the Origin of Life, Early Church Fathers, and Understanding ID 

William A. Dembski
August 1, 2008
On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin interviews leading intelligent design theorist and CSC Senior Fellow William Dembski. A mathematician and philosopher, Dr. Dembski is also a prolific writer with 3 books forthcoming this year: Understanding Intelligent Design: Everything You Need to Know in Plain Language, a user-friendly take on ID written with students in mind. The Patristic Understanding of Creation: An Anthology of Writings from the Church Fathers on Creation and Design, a thorough survey of the writings of the early Church theologians who were challenged by ancient Greeks who believed in an eternal world. How to be an Intellectually Fulfilled Atheist (Or Not), co-authored with Jonathan Wells, explains how materialistic approaches to the origin of life Read More ›