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Debating Design: from Darwin To P1: IRK 0521829496agg.xml CY335B/Dembski 0 521 82949 6 April 13, 2004 10:0 Debating Design From Darwin to DNA Edited by WILLIAM A. DEMBSKI Baylor University MICHAEL RUSE Florida State University iii CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521829496 © Cambridge University Press 2004, 2006 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2004 ISBN-13 978-0-511-33751-2 eBook (EBL) ISBN-10 0-511-33751-5 eBook (EBL) ISBN-13 978-0-521-82949-6 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-82949-6 hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-70990-3 paperback ISBN-10 0-521-70990-3 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. P1: IRK 0521829496agg.xml CY335B/Dembski 0 521 82949 6 April 13, 2004 10:0 Contents Notes on Contributors page vii introduction 1. General Introduction3 William A. Dembski and Michael Ruse 2. The Argument from Design: A Brief History 13 Michael Ruse 3. Who’s Afraid of ID? A Survey of the Intelligent Design Movement 32 Angus Menuge part i: darwinism 4. Design without Designer: Darwin’s Greatest Discovery 55 Francisco J. Ayala 5. The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of “Irreducible Complexity” 81 Kenneth R. Miller 6. The Design Argument 98 Elliott Sober 7. DNA by Design? Stephen Meyer and the Return of the God Hypothesis 130 Robert T. Pennock part ii: complex self-organization 8. Prolegomenon to a General Biology 151 Stuart Kauffman 9. Darwinism, Design, and Complex Systems Dynamics 173 Bruce H. Weber and David J. Depew v P1: IRK 0521829496agg.xml CY335B/Dembski 0 521 82949 6 April 13, 2004 10:0 vi Contents 10. Emergent Complexity, Teleology, and the Arrow of Time 191 Paul Davies 11. The Emergence of Biological Value 210 James Barham part iii: theistic evolution 12. Darwin, Design, and Divine Providence 229 John F. Haught 13. The Inbuilt Potentiality of Creation 246 John Polkinghorne 14. Theistic Evolution 261 Keith Ward 15. Intelligent Design: Some Geological, Historical, and Theological Questions 275 Michael Roberts 16. The Argument from Laws of Nature Reassessed 294 Richard Swinburne part iv: intelligent design 17. The Logical Underpinnings of Intelligent Design 311 William A. Dembski 18. Information, Entropy, and the Origin of Life 331 Walter L. Bradley 19. Irreducible Complexity: Obstacle to Darwinian Evolution 352 Michael J. Behe 20. The Cambrian Information Explosion: Evidence for Intelligent Design 371 Stephen C. Meyer Index 393 P1: IRK 0521829496agg.xml CY335B/Dembski 0 521 82949 6 April 13, 2004 10:0 Notes on Contributors Francisco J. Ayala was born in Madrid, Spain, and has been a U.S. citizen since 1971. Ayala has been president and chairman of the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1993–96) and was a member of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Tech- nology (1994–2001). Ayala is currently Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences and of Philosophy at the University of California at Irvine. He is a recipient of the National Medal of Science for 2001. Other honors include election to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and numerous foreign academies, including the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Rome). He has received numerous prizes and hon- orary degrees. His scientific research focuses on population and evolution- ary genetics, including the origin of species, genetic diversity of populations, the origin of malaria, the population structure of parasitic protozoa, and the molecular clock of evolution. He also writes about the interface between re- ligion and science and on philosophical issues concerning epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of biology. He is author of more than 750 articles and of 18 books. James Barham was trained in classics at the University of Texas at Austin and in the history of science at Harvard University. He is an independent scholar who has published some dozen articles on evolutionary epistemol- ogy, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of biology in both print and electronic journals, including BioSystems, Evolution and Cognition, Rivista di Biologia, and Metanexus.net. His work consists of a critique of the mech- anistic and Darwinian images of life and mind, as well as an exploration of alternative means of understanding value, purpose, and meaning as ob- jectively real, natural phenomena, in both their human and their universal biological manifestations. He is working on a book to be called Neither Ghost nor Machine. vii P1: IRK 0521829496agg.xml CY335B/Dembski 0 521 82949 6 April 13, 2004 10:0 viii Notes on Contributors Michael J. Behe graduated from Drexel University in Philadelphia in 1974, with a B.S. degree in chemistry. He did graduate studies in biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1978 for his dissertation research on sickle-cell disease. From 1978 to 1982, he did post- doctoral work on DNA structure at the National Institutes of Health. From 1982 to 1985, he was an assistant professor of chemistry at Queens College in New York City. In 1985 he moved to Lehigh University, where he is currently a professor of biochemistry. In his career he has authored more than forty technical papers and one book, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, which argues that living systems at the molecular level are best explained as being the result of deliberate intelligent design. Darwin’s Black Box has been reviewed by the New York Times, Nature, Philosophy of Science, Christianity Today, and more than eighty other publications and has been translated into eight languages. He and his wife reside near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with their eight children. Walter L. Bradley, Ph.D., P.E., received his B.S. in engineering science and his Ph.D. in materials science, both from the University of Texas at Austin. He taught for eight years as an assistant and associate professor at the Colorado School of Mines in its Metallurgical Engineering Department before as- suming a position as professor of mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University in 1976. He served as head of his department of 67 professors and 1,500 students from 1989 to 1993. He also served as the director of the Texas A&M University Polymer Technology Center from 1986 to 1990 and from 1994 to 2000. He has received more than $5 million in research contracts from government agencies such as NSF, NASA, DOE, and AFOSR and from major corporations such as Dupont, Exxon, Shell, Phillips, Equi- star, Texas Eastman, Union Carbide, and 3M. He has published more than 125 technical articles in archival journals, conference proceedings, and as book chapters. He was honored by being elected a Fellow of the American Society for Materials in 1992. He has received one national and five local re- search awards and two local teaching awards. He coauthored a seminal work on the origin of life entitled The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories in 1984, has published several book chapters and journal articles related to the origin of life, and has spoken on more than sixty university campuses on this topic over the past ten years. He took early retirement from Texas A&M University in 2000 and now holds the title of Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering. Paul Davies was born in London in 1946 and obtained a doctorate from University College, London, in 1970. He held academic appointments at Cambridge and London Universities until, at the age of thirty-four, he was appointed professor of theoretical physics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. From 1990 until 1996 he was professor of mathematical physics, P1: IRK 0521829496agg.xml CY335B/Dembski 0 521 82949 6 April 13, 2004 10:0 Notes on Contributors ix and later of natural philosophy, at the University of Adelaide. He currently holds the positions of visiting professor at Imperial College, London, and honorary professor at the University of Queensland, although he remains based in south Australia, where he runs a science, media, and publishing consultancy called Orion Productions. Professor Davies has published more than 100 research papers in specialist journals in the areas of cosmology, gravitation, and quantum field theory, with particular emphasis on black holes and the origin of the universe. In addition to his research, Professor Davies is well known as an author, broadcaster, and public lecturer. He has written more than twenty-five books, including God and the New Physics, The Cosmic Blueprint, The Mind of God, The Last Three Minutes, About Time, Are We Alone? and The Fifth Miracle. Davies’s commitment to bringing science to the wider public includes a heavy program of public lecturing in Australia, Europe, and the United States. In addition to addressing scientific topics, Davies lectures to religious organizations around the world and has had meetings with the Pope and the Dalai Lama. He frequently debates science and religion with theologians. Paul Davies is married and has four children. William A. Dembski is an associate research professor in the conceptual foun- dations of science at Baylor University and a senior Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture in Seattle.
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