William A. Dembski

Who is William A. Dembski?

William Albert "Bill" Dembski is an American mathematician, philosopher and theologian. A proponent of intelligent design, specifically the concept of specified complexity, he serves as of 2013 as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. In 2012, he taught as the Phillip E. Johnson Research Professor of Science and Culture at the Southern Evangelical Seminary in Matthews, North Carolina near Charlotte.

Dembski has written books about intelligent design, including The Design Inference, Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology, The Design Revolution, The End of Christianity, and Intelligent Design Uncensored.

The concept of intelligent design involves the argument that an intelligent cause is responsible for the complexity of life and that one can detect that cause empirically. Dembski postulates that probability theory can be used to prove irreducible complexity, or what he calls "specified complexity." The scientific community sees intelligent design—and Dembski's concept of specified complexity—as a form of conservative Christian creationism attempting to portray itself as science.