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    From the series ‘60/60 the best of SPCh’ (59) [60 most interesting publications from 60 years of SPCh]

    2026-01-26

    • Juuso Loikkanen: The design argument salvaged? Assessing the contemporary argument from improbability [Studia Philosophiae Christianae 56(2020)3, pp. 51-70].
    • DESCRIPTION: Juuso Loikkanen is a Finnish researcher, mainly associated with the University of Eastern Finland (UEF). His research focuses on the relationship between science and religion, including issues of evolution, intelligent design, and God's action in the world. The article in question concerns the scientific usefulness of the concept of so-called intelligent design. Some features of the physical universe appear to be so well ordered that they have been taken as evidence for the existence of a supernatural being who designed them. The history of the so-called design argument goes back thousands of years, and various versions of it have been presented. In this article, the author analyzes one of the contemporary versions of this argument, proposed by the so-called intelligent design movement, authored by W. Dembski, and compares its advantages and disadvantages with one of the most famous classical versions of this argument. "To conclude, in my view the big difference between the traditional
      design argument and the new one is that, if specified complexity was a reliable method to detect design, if the method could be applied to natural phenomena, and if some of these phenomena exhibited specified complexity, then it would be proven with a very high probability that a supernatural designer exists. Inferring objects as designed would not be based on mere intuition anymore. The
      proponents of ID, and William Dembski in particular, deserve acknowledgement for their attempt to construct an elaborate method for detecting design. Unfortunately, in its current form the argument does not contribute very much to the discussion" (p. 69).
    • Contenst: 1. Introduction. 2. The intuition of a design: the analogical design argument. 3. Hume’s critique against the analogical argument. 4. The persistence of the design intuition and the need for evidence. 5. Intelligent Design and the New Design Argument. 6. Detecting design through specified complexity. 7. From design to a designer. 8. Problems with the ID’s design argument. 9. Conclusion.
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