Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Dembski's lecture at the Niels Bohr Institute

(Hat tip: P.Z. Myers.)

William Dembski, author of The Design Inference, spoke on his notions of specified complexity at the Niels Bohr Institute. His audience was seriously Bohred.

In the hour at his disposal in front of a friendly-minded but mathematically knowledgeable audience, Dembski wove like a freshman about to fail. He repeated his heuristic, hand-waving arguments endlessly, drew stains on the blackboard, but didn't produce a single result of any mathematical value. Unfortunately, this is also what a mathematician gets from reading his "mathematical" book, The Design Inference, which, incidentally, is widely used to scare people who are intimidated by mathematical equations. It looks impressive, but in actuality contains no coherent mathematics. But now Dembski can boast that he, as a researcher of Intelligent Design, was invited to the Niels Bohr Institute as well as the Danish Technical University. What he doesn't mention is that he will never be invited again.

Apparently, those who know what he's talking about know he's got nothing to say.

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