Talk:The Design Inference

message: I don't understand why this article has a section about peer-review controversy.  The current version claims 
"The Discovery Institute's characterization of The Design Inference as a peer-reviewed scientific book has been dismissed by both critics of intelligent design and the judge in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial, a claim that clearly demonstrates their bias (since ID material has been published in multiple peer reviewed journals, including the Journal of Molecular Biology, the Journal of Theoretical Biology, the Annual Review of Genetics, etc)."  
A close reading of the Dover judgement shows that the conclusion is that there are no peer-reviewed journal articles.  This book is not mentioned in the judgement.  Unless someone can supply a citation of a source which claims that this book was not peer-reviewed I shall delete the section.  The claim of bias is in any case POV and should be reworded or removed.  --Drallim 19:34, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer review of books

message: :Image:Design inference.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.
If there is  other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page.  Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.
BetacommandBot (talk) 19:49, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Design inference.jpg

message: The article states:
The book was published by the Cambridge University Press as part of the monograph series Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory. It was peer-reviewed by logicians and philosophers. In 2003 Dembski cited it as one of "a few recent peer-reviewed publications supporting intelligent design in biology", arguing that it gives legitimacy to intelligent design.
In fact, the relevant expertise of reviewers of TDI, or even their existence, is unknown and unverifiable. Dembski at one point suggested that anyone with questions should ask the person in charge of the TDI manuscript at CUP, Dr. Brian Skyrms. So I did. Skyrms provided no answers beyond that TDI received the normal review procedure for a book in its series. Skyrms declined to even describe what a normal review process at CUP consisted of. Skyrms asked me if I knew that TDI does not apply Dembski's argument to biology and evolution, specifically whether I was aware that TDI did not even mention evolution. Not only am I not aware of that, I knew that, in fact, section 2.3 of TDI is "A Case Study: The Creation-Evolution Controversy", where Dembski does indeed apply his argument to the origin of life, or as Dembski writes it in TDI, "LIFE". That the person in charge of editing Dembski's manuscript at CUP, and that Dembski asserted was in charge of his manuscript, did not have even a cursory familiarity with its contents was stunning to me. That's the true measure of the level of "peer-review" that TDI received as best as I can determine. 
The article as currently written includes unverifiable statements as to the character of the review process and the expertise of those involved. It should be amended to drop those claims. --Wesley R. Elsberry (talk) 00:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  TDI and peer review 

message: Given that there are items in the article that involve me or my work that need correction, I'll broach the list of corrections here, and either someone else can make them, people can dispute them, or if nobody else objects or does anything about it, I'll come back in a couple of weeks and apply them.
* My name is misspelled: "Ellsberry" is incorrect, "Elsberry" is correct.
* My review is dated 1999, published in NCSE Reports. The date and the link should be changed. TalkReason is a good site, but it is a secondary source for the review, simply re-publishing it.
* As it stands, the WP article fails to conform to WP:NPOV. The impression left by the article and the parts quoted from my early review of Dembski (it predates Pigliucci's review) gives the incorrect impression that Dembski's ideas expressed in TDI are still considered legitimate. For more recent (and unrebutted) thought on the standing of Dembski's "explanatory filter" idea and "specified complexity", I have two published papers on those topics. Pre-publication text of "The advantages of theft over toil: the design inference and arguing from ignorance, published in "Biology and Philosophy", November, 2001 Wilkins, John S, and Wesley R Elsberry. 2001. The advantages of theft over toil: the design inference and arguing from ignorance. Biology and Philosophy 16 (November):711-724., gives an extensive critique of the problems in Dembski's "explanatory filter/design inference". Longer source for the edited article appearing the the Synthese special issue on "Evolution and Its Rivals" (online publication in 2009/04, print publication in the 2011/01 issue) Elsberry, Wesley R. and Shallit, Jeffrey O. 2011. Information theory, evolutionary computation, and Dembski’s “complex specified information”. Synthese Volume 178, Number 2, 237-270, DOI: 10.1007/s11229-009-9542-8, taking up the more technical problems with "specified complexity" in Dembski's published work on the topic. A variety of other critics have weighed in as well. I suggest at least my two later published critiques be added to the article with summaries to correct this deficiency. Having only my 1999 review as a cited critique promulgates an inaccurate impression of my view on Dembski's ideas. More published critical work cited would be even better.
--Wesley R. Elsberry (talk) 15:37, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks to Hrafn for correcting the misspelled instance of my name and correcting the review citation and link. There are two (I think) dates listed as 2002 for my review of TDI that should be changed to 1999. The Wilkins and Elsberry paper was published in 2001, but my book review was in 1999. --Wesley R. Elsberry (talk) 17:30, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  More recent critical sources and some corrections