This dissertation critiques and rejects Elliott Sober's dismissal of intelligent design as a scientific hypothesis. Sober builds the case for this dismissal in chapter 2 of his 2008 book Evidence and Evolution. Sober's case against intelligent design as science is a philosophical one, emerging from a Bayesian likelihood approach. Sober claims that unlike neo-Darwinian processes, intelligent design cannot supply independent evidence to support the claim that it is a measurably likely cause responsible for the emergence of biological organisms and the structures or processes of which they are composed. Without an assessable likelihood, Sober asserts that intelligent design (again, unlike neo-Darwinian mechanisms) is not testable, and since it is not testable, it does not qualify as a scientific hypothesis. This dissertation argues however, that according to Sober's own standards in Evidence, because intelligent design and the neo-Darwinian hypothesis both address unrepeated, major biological changes in the unobservable past, and because they both depend upon crucial analogies in order to support either inductive arguments or likelihood assessments, the two hypotheses stand on equivalent evidential and logical grounds. Either Sober must reject both neo-Darwinism and intelligent design, or he must allow them both as equivalent, rival hypotheses based upon a fair application of his argumentation requirements. In addition, after explaining important basics of analogy theory, and its crucial, even unavoidable role in the historical (or "origins") sciences, the dissertation goes on to show how intelligent design's empirical support, based upon analogy with humanly designed artifacts, machines and increasingly cell-like creations in the laboratory, is continuing to grow stronger by the year in both likelihood and in explanatory power. The dissertation thus concludes that intelligent design should be treated as a viable scientific explanation for the dramatic examples of specified complexity being discovered in biology, and indeed should be regarded as an increasingly vigorous rival to the neo-Darwinian explanation of such complexity.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Duquesne University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 329-354).

Thesis (Ph. D. in Religion)--Vanderbilt University, May 2008. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 1993. / Includes project proposal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [103-105]).

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-144).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 1993. / Includes project proposal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [103-105]).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, 1993. / Includes project proposal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [103-105]).

Thesis (M.A.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-144).

SANTOS, Maria Célia dos. O pensamento teleológico de Immanuel Kant. 2008. 92f. – Dissertação (Mestrado) – Universidade Federal do Ceará, Programa de Pós-graduação em Filosofia, Fortaleza (CE), 2008. / Submitted by Gustavo Daher (gdaherufc@hotmail.com) on 2017-10-02T16:30:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_mcsantos.pdf: 632670 bytes, checksum: 31ae113a15e4ec5d7fe0090101f4e1c3 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Márcia Araújo (marcia_m_bezerra@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-10-04T15:45:10Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_mcsantos.pdf: 632670 bytes, checksum: 31ae113a15e4ec5d7fe0090101f4e1c3 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-10-04T15:45:10Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2008_dis_mcsantos.pdf: 632670 bytes, checksum: 31ae113a15e4ec5d7fe0090101f4e1c3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / This research has as its objective present the concept of Theology by Immanuel Kant, having as a base “The Critic of the thinking faculty”, emphasizing, most of all, the idea of Nature finality. In this matter, we will try to show, according to Kant, the necessity to think something in conformity to the judgment be possible; it will describe the consonant between the reason and the world. Nevertheless, accentuating the conformity purpose, it is not a necessary start of nature, but a simple regulation to the judgment phenomena; a source to submit these phenomena to rules where there is casualty law, by its own mechanism, do not attain. Kant by the specifics constitution of our knowledge faculty, we can’t judge in another way the possibility of organized beings and its respective production, in the measure of our thinking to their intentional cause. We did not get to know sufficiently the organized beings guided by simple mechanics nature foundations and less, explain it from the law or nature for any organized intention. / Esta dissertação tem como objetivo apresentar o conceito de Teleologia no pensamento de Immanuel Kant, tomando como base a Crítica da Faculdade do Juízo, tendo em vista salientar, sobretudo, a idéia de finalidade na Natureza. Assim sendo, tentaremos mostrar, de acordo com Kant, a necessidade de se pensar alguma forma de conformidade a fins para que qualquer juízo possa ser possível; ela vai descrever uma sintonia entre juízo e mundo. Porém, salientando que a conformidade a fins objetiva não é nenhum princípio necessário da natureza, mas regulativo para o simples ajuizamento dos fenômenos; um princípio a mais para submeter esses fenômenos a regras onde as leis da causalidade, segundo o mecanismo da mesma, não alcançam. Para Kant, segundo a constituição específica das nossas faculdades de conhecimento, não podemos julgar de outro modo a possibilidade dos seres organizados e a sua respectiva produção, senão na medida em que pensamos para eles uma causa que aja intencionalmente. Não chegamos a conhecer suficientemente os seres organizados guiados por princípios da natureza simplesmente mecânicos e, ainda menos, explicá-los, a partir de leis da natureza, a qual nenhuma intenção organizou.

This dissertation is a critical evaluation of two modern thinkers debating the idea of intelligent design (ID), William Dembski and Francisco Ayala. Specifically, it focuses on Ayala's major theological critique of intelligent design, namely, the problem of dysteleology. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the problem of dysteleology as it relates to biology and offers a methodology for evaluating each thinker’s resolution to this problem. Chapter 2 examines Ayala's scientific critique of ID, and chapter 3 looks at Ayala's theological critique of ID. Chapter 4 summarizes Dembski's method for detecting design, and chapter 5 outlines Dembski's critiques of naturalism and materialism as well as his information-theoretic account of reality. Finally, chapter 6 analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of Ayala’s proposal that Darwin is a gift to theology in light of Dembski’s information-theoretic account of reality.