He was a proponent of intelligent design (ID) pseudoscience,[1] specifically the concept of specified complexity, and was a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC).
[2] On September 23, 2016, he officially retired from intelligent design, resigning all his "formal associations with the ID community, including [his] Discovery Institute fellowship of 20 years".
[4] 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.
After high school, Dembski attended the University of Chicago, where he experienced educational and personal difficulties, struggling with the advanced courses and finding the unfamiliar social milieu of college challenging.
Finding the creationist works interesting in their challenge of evolution but their literal interpretations lacking, Dembski returned to school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, studying statistics.
Based on the works of the 19th century thinker Charles Hodge, the group was devoted to strengthening the faith of students faced with what members believed to be the "theological disarray" of the times, and to providing an example of how to oppose "false and destructive ideas."
It published a journal (a recreation of the Princeton Theological Review (1903–1929)) and met with considerable opposition on the campus, facing two lawsuits, threats of violence, accusations of racism and sexism; being denied funding; and hearing that membership "jeopardized their academic advancement.
Another chapter, contributed by the creationists Charles Thaxton and Walter L Bradley, discussed "design detection" and redefined "specified complexity" as a way of measuring information.
"[21] After completing graduate school in 1996, Dembski was unable to secure a university position; from then until 1999 he received what he calls "a standard academic salary" of $40,000 a year as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.
Named after the Hungarian physical chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi (1891–1976), Dembski described it as "the first intelligent design think tank at a research university."
[24] The Polanyi Center was established without much publicity in October 1999, initially consisting of two people – Dembski and a like-minded colleague, Bruce L. Gordon, who were hired directly by Sloan without going through the usual channels of a search committee and departmental consultation.
A few days later, the Baylor faculty senate voted by a margin of 27–2 to ask the administration to dissolve the center and merge it with the Institute for Faith and Learning.
The committee recommended setting up a faculty advisory panel to oversee the science and religion components of the program, dropping the name "Michael Polanyi" and reconstituting the center as part of the Institute for Faith and Learning.
Charles Weaver, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor and one of the most vocal critics of the Polanyi Center, commented: "In academic arguments, we don't seek utter destruction and defeat of our opponents.
[37] On April 5, Dembski wagered that Pianka's popularity would drop if the full text of his speech to the Texas Academy of Science were made public.
[38] Subsequently, in July and August 2007, Dembski played a central role in the formation of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab (EIL), cofounded with Baylor University Engineering Professor Robert J.
[40] Baylor said they would permit Marks to repost his website on their server, provided a 108-word disclaimer[41] accompany any intelligent design-advancing research to make clear that the work does not represent the university's position.
[51] He has several more books in preparation as well as producing an Adobe Flash animation mocking Judge John E. Jones III, who presided in the landmark 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case.
Barbara Forrest and Paul R. Gross noted that Dembski has not been hesitant in associating with young Earth creationists, such as attending conferences with Carl Baugh.
[53] Dembski, along with fellow Discovery Institute associates Michael Behe and David Berlinski, tutored Ann Coulter on science and evolution for her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism (2006).
[57] In 1998, Dembski published his first book, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities, which became a Cambridge University Press bestselling philosophical monograph.
David Wolpert, co-creator of the No free lunch theorem on which Dembski based his book, characterized his arguments as "fatally informal and imprecise," "written in jello," reminiscent of philosophical discussion "of art, music, and literature, as well as much of ethics" rather than of scientific debate.
"[65] A second paper, "Evolutionary Synthesis of Nand Logic: Dissecting a Digital Organism,"[66] claims to deconstruct the evolution simulation Avida by uncovering the sources of active information in the program.
[70] In November 2007, a graduate student named S. A. Smith brought an apparent case of wholesale academic misuse of unlicensed content to public attention.
[95] Dembski has also spoken of his motivation for supporting intelligent design in a series of Sunday lectures in the Fellowship Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, the last of which took place on March 7, 2004.
[96] Dembski sees intelligent design as being a popular movement as well as a scientific hypothesis and claims that it is in the process of dislodging evolution from the public imagination.
In a favorable book review of Jeffrey Satinover's Cracking the Bible Code (1997), Dembski wrote that "The philosopher Bertrand Russell was once asked why he didn't believe in God.
"[98] Dembski once took his family to a meeting conducted by Todd Bentley, a faith healer, in hopes of receiving a "miraculous healing" for his son, who is autistic.
[99][100] In an article for the Baptist Press he recalled disappointment with the nature of the meeting and with the prevention of his son and other attendees from joining those in wheelchairs who were selected to receive prayer.
He then concluded, "Minimal time was given to healing, though plenty was devoted to assaulting our senses with blaring insipid music and even to Bentley promoting and selling his own products (books and CDs)."