No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence

This book is inspiring and well argued. I have been interested in the ultimate question - is evolution true? - for some time now - in fact it was when I read the words of PZ Myers, "I say, screw the polite words and careful rhetoric. It's time for scientists to break out the steel-toed boots and brass knuckles, and get out there and hammer on the lunatics and idiots. If you don't care enough for the truth to fight for it, then get out of the way." Then, when I saw videos of Dawkins and Sagan insisting that humans are related to halibuts, and oak trees, respectively, I decided to inform myself why they were so certain of this and so unwilling to entertain alternative theories. That's when I entered the chaotic, raucous, hellish parallel universe that the evolution vs. creationism debate has become. And I bought this and several other books on the topic. I am hoping that wherever we are on 'evolutionary' continuum, we can at least take a deep breath, let it out, and listen to one another. The mathematics in this book can, IF WE ARE RATIONAL BEINGS, contribute to some objectivity and perhaps we can all calm down again. We are told the evidence in favor of evolution is overwhelming, that we should just accept it, that to question it is merely an overt act of stupidity - I find such sentiments boorish and offputting. An intelligent person can question and can expect to find adequate explanations for those questions without being browbeaten and intellectually bullied for it. This book is a welcome and refreshing course of instruction on the mathematical requirements for evolutionary processes to have taken place. Indeed, there is sufficient discussion here to entertain mathematics majors and PHDs for quite some time. You may want to wait for the reader's digest condensed version if your eyes always glazed over in statistics classes. However, I did find the concept of Complex Specified Information understandable and useful. I think this author is on to something. I think his arguments need to be taken into account. I can't see any person truly interested in science lightly dismissing this book with a wave of their hand. This book is a rational and mathematical challenge to evolutionary orthodoxy.

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. Some critics have asserted that he has never applied his model for detecting design to any real biological systems. The latter half of this book debunks this fallacious objection, and provides a detailed calculation of the CSI found in the bacterial flagellum. Dembski assesses the complexity of the flagellum on various levels, including its protein parts and its assembly instructions, finding that the amount of CSI contained in the flagellum vastly outweigh the probabilistic resources available in the history of the universe to construct such a structure, absent intelligent design. No Free Lunch demonstrates that design theory shows great promise of providing insight in the field of evolutionary computation. If Dembski is right, then the ability of genetic algorithms to solve complex problems is a function of the amount of intelligent design inputted by their programmers.

This work by Professor Dembski attempts to defend the idea that life not only is, but must be, the product of intelligence. As a cell biologist, my graduate course work and teaching experience has demonstrated this over and over, but Dembski in this book looks at the mathematics and logic that supports this premise. He also does an excellent job responding to the arguments against the irreducible complexity concept. In my opinion, this is one of the strongest arguments for ID. The arguments concocted against it have, in my mind, only confirmed this concept. Dembski also does an excellent job responding to Dawkins and his ME THINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL analogy, which proves the opposite of what Dawkins intended. A common claim is that Dembski (and the ID movement as a whole) is only concerned about polemics and propaganda, and the movement lacks a genuine interest and competence to do real science (which I assume refers to empirical research and collecting data). I have spent much of my career collecting data. This requires a special skill but more important in science is the ability to understand and integrate this data, which takes a skill that I have come to appreciate is less common and more important than doing number crunching of measurements. There is a place for both, but a clear need exists to make sense of the data we already have. I find that students can gather date fairly effectively, but the real challenge and talent is to make sense of that data. In grading their labs I always stress this. Dembski has done an invaluable service in making sense of the extant data. The only factor preventing acceptance of his conclusions is an emotional commitment to fundamentalist Darwinism.

It is disappointing to see one reviewer rely on the discredited Richard Wein, and use the "God in the gaps" argument. (If there is a Designer, of course, He/She/It/They would necessraily be in the "gaps." Where else would He/She/It/They be? Since naturalistic philosophy assumes no designer, no conceivable gap could ever convince them otherwise. NeoDarwinism is just as non-falsifiable as any alternative.) The Issue, of course, is the gaps themselves. And the nature of the gaps, which at this point turns out to be the specified complexity of these marvelous nano-machines we call biological cells. And despite the zeal of the naturalists, the gaps are huge. Grand Canyon sized and getting bigger. Dembski's book is an essential for anyone interested in the NeoDarwinism vs Intellegent Design. It is refreshing to see a genuine scientific treatment of this subject without all the young earth Bible thumping from the creationists. Dembski succeeds in showing the bankruptcy of NeoDarwinism when it comes to how cells actually acquired their specified complexity. Does this prove that there is a Designer? Of course not. And Dembski claims nothing of the sort. But it clearly demonstrates the current utter bankruptcy (or non-existence) of the NeoDarwinists explanations and approaches the question from an entirely new paradigm.Buy this book and tell your friends to buy it.