No Free Lunch

William A. Dembski is associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University and senior fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture in Seattle.

In No Free Lunch, William Dembski gives the most profound challenge to the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution since this theory was first formulated in the 1930s. I differ from Dembski on some points, mainly in ways which strengthen his conclusion.

• Part 1 List of IllustrationsPart 2 PrefacePart 3 The Third Mode of ExplanationChapter 4 Necessity, Chance, and DesignChapter 5 Rehabilitating DesignChapter 6 The Complexity-Specification CriterionChapter 7 SpecificationChapter 8 Probabilistic ResourcesChapter 9 False Negatives and False PositivesChapter 10 Why the Criterion WorksChapter 11 The Darwinian Challenge to DesignChapter 12 The Constraning of ContingencyChapter 13 The Darwinian ExtrapolationPart 14 Another Way to Detect Design?Chapter 15 Fisher's Approach to Eliminating ChanceChapter 16 Generalizing Fisher's ApproachChapter 17 Case Study: Nicholas CaputoChapter 18 Case Study: The Comprehensibility of Bit StringsChapter 19 DetachabilityChapter 20 Sweeping the Field of Chance HypothesesChapter 21 Justifying the GeneralizationChapter 22 The Inflation of Probabilistic ResourcesChapter 23 Design by ComparisonChapter 24 Design by EliminationPart 25 Specified Complexity as InformationChapter 26 InformationChapter 27 Syntactic, Statistical, and Algorithmic InformationChapter 28 Information in ContextChapter 29 Conceptual and Physical InformationChapter 30 Complex Specified InformationChapter 31 Semantic InformationChapter 32 Biological InformationChapter 33 The Origin of Comlex Specified InformationChapter 34 The Law of Conservation of InformationChapter 35 A Fourth Law of Thermodynamics?Part 36 Evolutionary AlgorithmsChapter 37 METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASELChapter 38 OptimizationChapter 39 Statement of the ProblemChapter 40 Choosing the Right Fitness FunctionChapter 41 Blind SearchChapter 42 The No Free Lunch TheoremsChapter 43 The Displacement ProblemChapter 44 Darwinian Evolution in NatureChapter 45 Following the Information TrailChapter 46 Coevolving Fitness LandscapesPart 47 The Emergence of Irreducibly Complex SystemsChapter 48 The Casual Specificity ProblemChapter 49 The Challenge of Irreducible ComplexityChapter 50 Scaffolding and Roman ArchesChapter 51 Co-optation, Patchwork, and BricolageChapter 52 Incremental IndispensabilityChapter 53 Reducible ComplexityChapter 54 Miscellaneous ObjectionsChapter 55 The Logic of InvariantsChapter 56 Fine-Tuning Irreducible ComplexityChapter 57 Doing the CalculationPart 58 Design as a Scientific Research ProgramChapter 59 Outline of a Positive Research ProgramChapter 60 The Pattern of EvolutionChapter 61 The Incompleteness of Natural LawsChapter 62 Does Specified Complexity Have a Mechanism?Chapter 63 The Nature of NatureChapter 64 Must All Design in Nature Be Front-Loaded?Chapter 65 Embodied and Unembodied DesignersChapter 66 Who Designed the Designer?Chapter 67 TestabilityChapter 68 Magic, Mechanism, and DesignPart 69 Index