Get to Know Dr. Dembski

“Caroline, I can tell you have the fire in your belly. Follow that passion and I will support you all the way.” This is what Dr. Bill Dembski, now a member of the AITSE Consortium, said to Dr. Crocker in the summer of 2008. This was soon followed by encouragement from several other leading scientists and professionals.  AITSE incorporated in 2009, gained nonprofit status in 2010, and added a consortium of scientists, physicians, and engineers in 2011. By 2012 we had a monthly newsletter, had published numerous on line and magazine articles, had given talks in many and various venues including the United States Capitol building, and had a robust social media presence. One might think that Dr. Dembski has a lot to answer for.

So, this is your opportunity to get to know him better. Dr. Dembski gave a lengthy interview at the Best Schools website. We will leave you to read the entire article for yourselves, but will give you this taster,

“what decided me against Darwinism wasn’t its unacceptability to any preferred construal of Christianity. It was this.

We all have intuitions about what’s within the reach of chance and what isn’t. If I get out a fair coin and flip it three times, I might witness three heads in a row, no problem. I might even flip 10 heads in a row if given an hour or two to toss the coin. But getting 100, to say nothing of 1,000, heads in a row by chance seems completely absurd.

Well, when I was reading about the origin of life (this was in 1980), it seemed to me utterly ridiculous that chemistry left to its own devices could pull off this feat of forming first life. Once naturalism lost its hold on me with regard to the origin of life, skepticism of Darwinism vis-à-vis the subsequent history of life followed. Indeed, without naturalism to prop up Darwinism, the evidence for this unguided form of evolution is underwhelming, to say the least.”

With a PhD in math and another in philosophy, Dr. Dembski’s views are worth considering.