Specified complexity

Specified complexity is a pseudoscientific concept proposed by William Dembski and used by him and others to promote intelligent design. According to Dembski, the concept can formalize a property that singles out patterns that are both specified and complex, in specific senses defined by Dembski. Dembski states that specified complexity is a reliable marker of design by an intelligent agent - a central tenet to intelligent design, which Dembski argues for in opposition to modern evolutionary theory. The concept of specified complexity is widely regarded as mathematically unsound and has not been the basis for further independent work in information theory, in the theory of complex systems, or in biology. Proponents of intelligent design use specified complexity as one of their two main arguments, alongside irreducible complexity.