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Richard Dawkins is not a shy man. Edward Larson's research shows that most scientists today are not formally religious, but Dawkins is an in-your-face atheist in the witty British style:
I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence.
The title of this 1986 work, Dawkins's second book, refers to the Rev. William Paley's 1802 work, Natural Theology, which argued that just as finding a watch would lead you to conclude that a watchmaker must exist, the complexity of living organisms proves that a Creator exists. Not so, says Dawkins: "All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way... it is the blind watchmaker."
Dawkins is a hard-core scientist: he doesn't just tell you what is so, he shows you how to find out for yourself. For this book, he wrote Biomorph, one of the first artificial life programs. You can check Dawkins's results on your own Mac or PC.
Book Description
"The best general account of evolution I have read in recent years."—E. O. Wilson. With a new introduction.
Twenty years after its original publication, The Blind Watchmaker, framed with a new introduction by the author, is as prescient and timely a book as ever. The watchmaker belongs to the eighteenth-century theologian William Paley, who argued that just as a watch is too complicated and functional to have sprung into existence by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Charles Darwin's brilliant discovery challenged the creationist arguments; but only Richard Dawkins could have written this elegant riposte. Natural selection—the unconscious, automatic, blind, yet essentially nonrandom process Darwin discovered—is the blind watchmaker in nature.
Customer Reviews:
Makes evolution understandable.......2007-10-02
It is some years since I read this excellent book on evolution. But I still remember it as the book that really laid out the nuts and bolts of the process and made it easy to understand at the "Ah now I see" level. I know of no better layman's guide to evolution.
"Passionate advocacy" and storytelling: 2 stars?.......2007-10-02
". . . there are wonderful stories to be told, and I love storytelling." Dawkins, tBW, chapter 2.
It must be admitted that Dawkins is an entertaining expositor, at least when he avoids repetition and a bad habit of prolonged hammering away at very simple concepts, often for pages on end, as if his assertions and arguments were more difficult to grasp than they actually are. In some instances he explains rather well, in comfortably pedestrian language, certain specific biological details, but when he tries to generalize and extend his views to larger scale philosophical perspectives, his assertions quickly disintegrate under critical scrutiny. All things considered, TBW isn't very impressive.
Dawkins states early on that he is writing from the perspective of a "passionate advocate" rather than that of a scientist proceeding along lines of argument that might be recognized as being scientific. He says that he does this because the reader can't grasp the science involved, therefore he is to invoke "wonderful stories." He frets that some will not believe him because they do not "want to believe." Dawkins wants to believe.
I find it curiously disingenuous, perhaps even insulting and intellectually evasive on Dawkins' part, that he suggests he must deal in metaphors and stories because his readers are too stupid (no, he doesn't use the word `stupid', but this is what he repeatedly describes) to understand his deep, scientific understanding of the Darwinian story. His lengthy insistence that evolution has hard-wired us to be unable to understand and appreciate echolocation in bats, is obviously wrong. In Dawkins' hands, this kind of suggestion is supposed to, in its own merit, buttress some of his arguments (see the following paragraph). A thinking person begs to differ. Many of the most brilliant and penetrating minds of modern theoretical science and mathematics, including Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, John von Neumann, and Kurt Gödel, among others, have found the Darwinian story to be non-compelling at best, and on some points glaringly wrong. Dawkins may want to dismiss them as `not wanting to believe' or as being somehow stupid, but . . .
Dawkins: "Our minds can't cope with [large numbers] . . . Our minds can't imagine a time span [greater or less than `routine' human experience]," because "it offends the economically minded human." Dawkins says "there was no need for our ancestors to cope with sizes and times outside the narrow range of everyday practicality, so our brains never evolved the capacity to imagine them." Dawkins loves this mythic defense and ducks behind it frequently, but it is a hapless argument. It is "a slander against humanity," as one philosopher of science has stated, and it is self evidently wrong. The human mind certainly CAN imagine numbers both much larger and smaller than can be encountered in "routine experience," and can do more than 'imagine' them! Consider for a mere moment the insights of a Gauss, Cantor, or Riemann; consider that even a modestly competent math student CAN not only imagine very large and very small numbers [including quantities of distance and time units], but CAN engage and manipulate these numbers accurately, often rather easily when abstracted with decipherable notations like exponents!
It is not a matter of this _kind_ of observation being inherently untrue; many physicists, including Paul Dirac, have spoken this way about quantum mechanics, for example. Indeed it is difficult to understand quantum mechanics because neither Bohr's complimentarity principle nor Heisenberg's uncertainty principle have any obvious analogs within normal human experience, let alone the way in which these two surprising qualities are entangled. But this observation is fundamentally different than Dawkins' argument that humans cannot understand imaging with non-visible frequencies or what to make of big numbers! Any curious person who has ever considered a sonogram or x-ray image, or seen a movie featuring submariners watching sonar screens, grasps non-visual spectrum images, and any modestly competent high school student well understands what large numbers are!
Dawkins' sluggardly argument "whistles past the graveyard" that is home to a real problem for the great Darwinian thesis: why should our abilities to examine non-commutative algebras or higher dimensional topologies or even advanced number theory [or any of the more esoteric fields of mathematics] exist at all in a Darwinian world? Certainly not for any of the rationales that Dawkins appeals to. They provide no survival or reproductive advantage within evolutionary `routine experience,' or in any other sense whatsoever. They avail "the selfish gene" nothing. They exist as a non-Darwinian/ anti-Dawkins reality.
Dawkins says that "5 per cent of an eye" would probably provide "5 per cent vision." Skepticism seems reasonable here, except perhaps for those who "want to believe." He presents many such dubious assertions, like: "living organisms exist for the benefit of DNA rather than the other way around" (ultimately--in DNA--teleology and `purpose' are alive and well!) and, "DNA molecules themselves, as physical entities, are like dewdrops" (true in a very limited and caricatured sense perhaps, but grossly misleading, to put it mildly). Presumably Dawkins would deflect criticism of some such colorful assertions by claiming them mere metaphors. Okay, but what then are the actual `truths' he is trying to demonstrate? Can they be stated precisely or directly and seem less cartoonish? Or are his readers merely too stupid for the `scientific' explanations that he is protecting them from? (With apologies to Dawkins' fans who might consider the last question a cheap shot [I do not].)
There are so many aspects of Dawkins' book that beg critical analysis, that, in the desire to keep this review short, I will have to simply point some of them out briefly before moving forward: (1.) His programmed stick figure "bio-morphs" obviously have been brought into `existence' by design, in an intelligently designed `world,' and for a specific purpose, how does this support his "without purpose" and "without design" doctrine? (2.) His `typing monkeys' story, borrowed from one of his heroes, TH Huxley, is hopelessly burdened with design, purpose and intelligent contrivance--who builds the typewriters, who made the language and symbols thereof that the builder of the typewriters clearly needed as a starting point, who makes the paper (cuts and mills the trees, etc), who keeps those 99.999. . . percent of monkeys that would simply smash the typewriters away from them and keeps that rare typing monkey on task?--again, how could any of this support his "without purpose" and "without design" doctrine? He eventually (chapt 6) admits that it does not. (3.) His computer program designed to derive a sentence from Hamlet, if given the necessary letters to work with, and if specifically designed to achieve a specific result, will do so--well folks, are you beginning to see a pattern here? Design is supposed to equal no design! Dawkins' core thesis in TBW, as presented in the book's subtitle, "the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design," fails utterly in all of his memorable and now famous arguments, no matter what points concerning natural selection one may believe he has made cleanly.
"It could happen:" Dawkins' most fundamental and foundational arguments and speculations are also his most flawed, and are appropriately employed in the center of the book, chapter six, "Origins and miracles." Here Dawkins quickly demands that an extra-cosmic designer (God) must be an "organized complexity" that evolves naturally within an infinite regress of causes. This is certainly a convenient construction, as it makes "god" quite expendable by definition, but the definition is poor quality straw. The god whose fire he steals is not the "simple unity" or the "first cause of causes" that one finds in either Abrahamic or neo-Platonic theology. His wrong argument simply defeats a wrong god. He next sketches a somewhat accurate picture of the profound difficulties of `abiogenesis'/ `autogenesis'/ `spontaneous generation' of life theories. He says that to effectively put these problems aside, we only need to imagine that these difficulties were somehow overcome--"it must have happened." The "pathway" model he chooses to champion as being plausible is due to Graham Cairns-Smith, and goes something very like this:
Carbon macromolecules, proteins and nucleic acids, necessary to all carbon-based life, that is all life that we know of, are so complex that it is hopelessly difficult to imagine them arising spontaneously in any non-living substratum. That Stanley Miller and others have synthesized amino acids is of no real help here, the gap between mere amino acids and the highly complex carbon macromolecules is too great. So let's imagine something simpler, that silicon-base lattices are "life-like" in that they are "organized" and rudimentarily "complex." Now imagine that non-directed geological and meteorological forces in some sense "select" certain silicon dust crystals such that they accumulate and form larger "organizations." Now imagine that these silicon "organizations" become something that might be described as "RNA-like" mud. Now imagine that actual RNA begins to "take over" the "RNA-like" mud. Carbon macromolecules somehow have arisen and now somehow replace silicon structures. Viola! "Life-like" "organizations" of "RNA-like" mud are now organizations of RNA and RNA organizations eventually become DNA organizations and "life-like" organizations become life. Inorganic structures somehow `commute' to carbon molecules. Mineral (silicon being the best candidate) crystal `genes' commute to carbon-based genes, RNA "takes over" "RNA-like", DNA eventually takes over. I suppose this is plausible for a `true believer' for whom the proper kind of `imagination' is sufficient, but it's not plausible in any scientific sense. The entire heart of the original problem remains intact. Where did the carbon macromolecules come from? How did RNA "appear"?
Dawkins defense of this problem is interestingly empty and invokes "a marble statue of the Virgin Mary suddenly" waving its hand at us. Here it is: "In the case of the marble statue, molecules in solid marble are continuously jostling against one another in random directions. The jostlings of the different molecules cancel one another out, so the whole hand of the statue stays still. But if, by sheer coincidence, all the molecules just happened to move in the same direction at the same moment, the hand would move. If they then all reversed direction at the same moment the hand would move back. In this way it is possible for a marble statue to wave at us. It could happen. The odds against such a coincidence are unimaginably great but they are not incalculably great. A physicist colleague has kindly calculated them for me. The number is so large that the entire age of the universe so far is too short a time to write out all the noughts! It is theoretically possible for a cow to jump over the moon with something like the same improbability. The conclusion to this part of the argument is that we can calculate our way into regions of miraculous improbability far greater than we can imagine as plausible."
All that is left to Dawkins is to again regale our inability to imagine numbers "so large that the entire age of the universe so far is too short a time to write out all the noughts!" It's the final sum of his argument--we don't have good enough imaginations! It is interesting that Dawkins doesn't recognize that this same specie of argument can more easily be employed to defend belief in a First Cause of causes (here Dawkins seems to have a contentedly parochial imagination). And of course, neither a cow jumping over the moon nor a marble statue waving at us either establishes or quantifies the plausibility of life spontaneously arising from non-life.
Although his deepest philosophical assertions fail grandly, although he is repetitive and wordy, and although he is given to belittling his readers' intelligence even while trying to educate and entertain them, the book has its moments; Dawkins certainly doesn't get EVERYTHING wrong, he IS at times entertaining, and this book isn't as bad as The Selfish Gene.
Please Read (Especially if You're Religious)!.......2007-09-29
I have a degree in English and American Literature and my minor was in History. In other words, I'm not great at science or math. But I've always been interested in some aspects of science and biology and evolution happen to be subjects I like. I'm not a complete moron when it comes to scientific subjects but I'm sure any 8th grade science geek could probably run rings around me.
Consequently, this book by Richard Dawkins is made for me. The way I understood it it was written with a general reader in mind. The book is well written and plausibly argued. And as long as you pay attention and follow the logic of the author's arguments it's not that hard to follow.
The basic premise of the book is to show how life could appear in the universe without a creator or any pre-conceived notion of design (the whole "Intelligent Design" argument now being debated across the U.S.). Dawkins obviously loves Darwin and bases his argument on cumulative evolution over billions of years (the age of the Earth [and please shut-up you stupid creationists trying to argue that the Earth is only 6,000 years old!]). Dawkins patiently explains how such a slow and random process like natural selection could evolve our life-forms over vast amounts of time. Like I said, I'm no great scientist, but the argument makes perfect sense and I still fail to see why anyone tries to argue otherwise (except, of course, for religious reasons, but those are very silly reasons).
Overall, this is a good way to try to understand evolution in more depth than the few words hopefully given to you in high school and college. There are a few parts which I found to be boring (like the taxonomy debates and different schools of thought in taxonomy) but I think this book is an important read--especially now that religious nuts are trying to dumb people down.
468 pages of evasive reasoning.......2007-09-15
Dawkins' thesis in this book is to prove that the universe is a non-sentient thing which merely exists. There is no God who creates. What order there is (e.g. life) has been produced by mutation and cumulative selection (i.e. evolution).
But one could ask, who designed evolution? How did the universe come to be? Dawkins' sidesteps these questions for 468 pages (in my edition of the book).
As an engineer, I find his whole approach disturbing because he asks us to have faith in evolution rather than in God. I write this because evolution seems to be an untestable theory. If I propose to do an experiment to evolve bacteria into human beings a Darwinist will tell me that it is impossible to do because the time required would be much, much longer than that of a single human lifespan. And Dawkins seems to be saying that even if one could do that, the result would not be a human being but maybe something resembling a human being. What is there left to do but have faith in the priests of evolution? It's not as though I can test their theory. Given this, Dawkins' obvious contempt for those who believe in God is hard to take.
Great explanation of evolution.......2007-09-13
This book is an excellent explanation of evolution. It's a little on the dry side, and people who already know quite a bit about evolution will find it slow in the beginning. It picks up, though. Dawkins starts off with simple concepts and gradually builds into the more complex understandings of evolution. He explains everything very clearly, using analogies to help visualize some of the more difficult concepts. This book does a great job of clearing up a lot of the misunderstandings of what evolution is really about and putting a beautiful concept in science into terms any lay person can understand. Dawkins makes evolution impossible to dispute once you have read his book. I think most people who try to argue with evolution could only possibly be doing so because they do not fully understand it.
Book Description
As progress in science continues to reveal unimagined complexities, three scientists revisit the difficult and compelling question of the origin of our universe. As mathematician, biochemist, and philosopher of science, they explore the possibility of developing a reliable method for detecting an intelligent cause and evidence for design at the origin of life. In the process, they present a strong case for opening and pursuing a fruitful exchange between science and theology.
Mathematician William Dembski, author of The Design Inference, first argues that new developments in the information sciences make intelligent design objectively and scientifically detectable—he identifies the signs of design. Next, philosopher of science, Stephen Meyer, and biochemist Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box, argue that these signs are now clearly evident in both the architecture of the universe and the features of living systems. Other essays by the authors defend the scientific status of the theory of intelligent design and show how that theory supports traditional religious belief without necessarily "proving" the existence of God. In a concluding essay, Michael Behe responds to critics of his best selling book, Darwin's Black Box, thus bringing readers up-to-date on the status of the contemporary design argument in biology.
Customer Reviews:
Finally, a scholarly yet accesible counterpoint.......2006-11-10
Taken together, Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe and Darwin's Black Box make up the best challenge to currently accepted theories I've read. It is about time we stop protecting theories, and start exploring the vast new evidence being uncovered by the expanding frontiers of science. That is what these books do. They point out the new discoveries in several areas of science, which challenge the long-held Darwinian explanation for the beginnings of life. Shouldn't we be willing to see where the evidence takes us? Frankly, Christian faith has nothing to do with evolution vs. creation - as I recall the first few verses of Genesis talk about the earth existing as "chaos" before creation, how do we know what that means? Evidently, challenging the theories of Darwin is rather threatening to many of the very scientists who should be eager to see where this new evidence leads us.
Get the book, read it - it is not an "easy" read, but it IS accesible to anyone who did well in general education science - and then read it again.
Behe whipped by 'the flagellum'.......2006-10-27
In Behe's chapter he states that the bacterial flagellum contains 40 protein parts and that this structure is irreducibly complex. However, a recent paper in Nature Reviews Microbiology by Pallen and Matzke show that Behe made a sweeping generalization by saying "the flagellum" (there are literally thousands of flagellar structures; not one)and many of the flagellar structures require far less than 40 proteins!!!! So much for irreducible complexity. The DI apparently did not do their research. An accesible critique of this is at the Panda's Thumb by Nick Matzke, or the ID to the future podcast comments.
A Pathetic Attempt at Trying to Demonstrate Intelligent Design's Validity as a Scientific Theory.......2006-08-16
Defenders of Intelligent Design will undoubtedly point to "Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe (Proceedings of the Wethersfield Institute)" as a sterling example of excellent research done in Intelligent Design published in a scientific volume. However, don't be so easily misled folks, since the publisher, Ignatius Press, publishes predominantly religious literature only. Furthermore, none of the papers published was subjected to rigorous scientific peer review of the kind one would expect in symposia volumes and journals published by and for a reputable scientific community (If you truly think that these articles were subjected to such peer review, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn, NY which I would love to sell to you.). Instead, what is presented herein is idle speculation not supported by factual scientific evidence in each of these articles. Instead, each author is guilty of relying only upon philosophical statements, without demonstrating how Intelligent Design is scientifically testable. Hence, this volume is merely a poor example of science fiction pretending to be genuine science.
Intelligent Design is not scientific since it does not adhere to any of the long-established tenets about science itself (Intelligent Design has been judged correctly as the latest flavor of creationism enjoying some popularity amongst fundamentalist Protestant Christians; one notable biologist has referred to it as "reborn creationism".). It can not be tested, simply because it does not generate any testable hypotheses. Moreover, despite claims to the contrary, I have yet to see any peer-reviewed articles testing Intelligent Design; instead, every single book and article published in praise of this idea is merely an attack on the Modern Synthesis Theory of Evolution; this evolutionary theory is itself the central underlying theory for contemporary biology as much as General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are for contemporary physics (Any current scientific controversies about the Modern Synthesis are related to understanding the tempo and mode of evolution as seen from the fossil record and the relative importance of random genetic drift as the primary means of causing evolutionary change; they, themselves, do not mean that the Modern Synthesis is in trouble as the successful unifying theory it has been for nearly a century in explaining biological phenomena.). And Intelligent Design is not a new idea at odds with mainstream science, but rather the latest incarnation of an idea dating from the 17th Century regarding a "Great Chain of Being" which was subsequently tested - and rejected - by Enlightenment and later scientists, most notably naturalists, leading up to of course Darwin and Wallace, who almost simultaneously came up with the Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection (The Modern Synthesis Theory is its direct descendant, and includes its principles, as well as evidence from biological sciences as diverse as genetics, molecular biology and developmental biology, which were unknown to both Darwin and Wallace.).
There are other, more important - and intellectually sound - books available on the so-called "creation vs. evolution" controversy (Intelligent Design has been judged correctly as the latest flavor of creationism enjoying some popularity amongst fundamentalist Protestant Christians; one notable biologist has referred to it as "reborn creationism".), which I regard as more worthy than any of Dembski's self-serving defenses of Intelligent Design. Philosopher Robert Pennock's "Tower of Babel" is a splendid historical overview and philosophical deconstruction of creationism, including the best written rebuke of "Intelligent Design" which I've come across. Philip Kitcher, another philosopher, published "Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism" back in the early 1980s, but his arguments are still quite valid today. My friend Ken Miller's "Finding Darwin's God" has an eloquent critique of Intelligent Design, focusing on Michael Behe's mousetrap model of irreducible complexity which claims to bestow validity on Intelligent Design. Distinguished American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) invertebrate paleobiologist Niles Eldredge offers yet another brilliant critique of Intelligent Design in his book "Darwin: Discovering the Tree of Life", the elegant companion volume to the AMNH Darwin exhibition which he curated, soon to embark on a tour taking it to many of North America's and Great Britain's finest science museums. And last, but not least, Eugenie Scott, Executive Director, National Center for Science Education (www.ncseweb.org), has written a fine textbook on this issue, "Evolution vs. Creationism". All of these books are more desirable than this pretentious book which claims to report genuine scientific research. Otherwise, if you insist on purchasing this book, then perhaps you might choose to acquire instead a splendid text devoted to Klingon cosmology (Neither Klingon cosmology nor "Intelligent Design" can be regarded as scientific, since both depend on faith, not reason, to validate their principles.).
Does the Universe Show Signs of Intelligent Design?.......2006-06-22
Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe provides a collection of invaluable, in-depth papers by leading design theorists Michael Behe, William Dembski, and Stephen Meyer from a conference sponsored by the Wethersfield Institute in 1999.
William Dembksi opens the book by explaining how design can be detected in the natural world. An explanatory filter can be used to determine if a given event is best explained by chance, law (necessity), or intelligent design. Dembski explains that a variety of disciplines, such as forensic science, psychology, or the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project already employ this sort of reasoning. It is then suggested that this scheme might be applied to detect design in the natural sciences.
Stephen Meyer takes up Dembski's challenge by finding that the laws of the universe are highly specified to allow for advanced life. According to Meyer, this implies design at the cosmic level. Meyer also finds design in biology, finding that the sequence specificity inherent in DNA and the specified complexity found in microbiological machines indicate that they were designed. Finally, Meyer critiques various naturalistic models for the origin of life and concludes that design is the best explanation. This is not an argument from ignorance because of our experience with design satisfying the vera causa principle--the recognition that historical sciences should postulate only causes which are sufficient to produce the effect in question. Meyer thus argues that we cannot make a uniformitarian argument to a supernatural deity to explain the specified complexity in life, because we have no observational experience with such, but we can invoke the general category of intelligence, for our uniform experience tells us that intelligence alone is the cause of complex, specified information.
Finally Michael Behe explains that the many irreducibly complex systems in the cell meet Dembski's criteria for design. Behe recounts how critics postulate evolutionary explanations for the origin of such systems and describe Behe's case for design as an argument from ignorance. Behe responds by observing that these Darwinian explanations are highly speculative and unlikely, and that Darwinists have placed their theory in an unfalsifiable position. Behe says design theorists should have no shame in inferring design when Darwinists cannot produce realistic scenarios for the origin of irreducible complexity.
The universal as witness; evidence and the universal probabilities.......2006-04-06
For those who are philosophically opposed to the notion that the universe may have been designed, the root of objection is not based on scientific evidence. It has become a mantra, a dogma, an article of faith to declare loudly that "evolution is a proven fact", but the statement needs to demonstrate that it asserts something true. If evolution is a proven fact, the scientific community that believes in evolution does not need to be shy. The evidence doesn't need to be hidden. Bring it out; let all seekers after truth and reality observe it. I may say that I have not come across any such evidence, and my fields are biochemistry and physics with a strong interest in mathematics. It's certainly possible there is information I haven't examined. I would love to know about it... but so far, evidence itself does not support a universe in which life came about by chance, necessity or a combination thereof.
This book explicates the problems that the Theory of Evolution has in its broadest sense as well as in a more explicit mechanistic sense. The articles comprising it are for the most part extremely well written. I should mention that the second article, the first of those written by Stephen Meyer, I found a little tedious but only because the author used therein a style that I consider rather heavy, repeating one concept and restating it in different words without adding anything in the restatement. I felt that the article could have been condensed by at least half without losing any sense. Yet WHAT Stephen Meyer was saying was interesting... and the second article written by him in the book had no such internal repetition and was highly readable. I have had to conclude that Stephen Meyer has experienced readers or audience who have failed to follow his philosophy-of-science and implications-of-probability-bounds arguments before... and he's taking no chances (pun intended) of the meaning of his writing being misunderstood. That he is a highly intelligent man with a great deal to impart on the very meaning of science and the implications of data is undeniable.
On the basis of his second article, I will be happy to read further writings of his.
Michael Behe is always a pleasure to read. His writing is clear, and his examples are apt. His article will be familiar in most aspects to readers of his ground-breaking "Darwin's Black Box", but the follow-up article, in which he responds to criticisms of the examples and arguments used in that book, is interesting and unambiguous. What comes through clearly is that criticisms were either a) science-based or b) philosophy-based. The science-based criticisms are remarkable for their failure to challenge the biochemical irreducible complexity argument and to find real examples that contradict the evidence presented by Behe. In fact, every example presented with the intent to break down Behe's argument and specific examples not only fails to do so, but inadvertently supplies evidence that SUPPORTS Behe's argument. To go into detail here would be inappropriate and far too lengthy - but Behe's rebuttal is on the basis of biochemical evidence. Let those reading this review be challenged to read the book themselves and judge on the basis of what Michael Behe has written - not opinion, not selective examples, but real and soundly scientific examination of evidence. You need not purchase the book if you're opposed to its concepts - but why not borrow it from your local library? If you are not a biochemist, have next to you while you read it a biological science or biochemistry textbook. Make sure it's an advanced level textbook so that the incredible and complex reality of the systems Behe is discussing can be checked by you in terms of the details. Better still, those who are not biochemists might find enormous pleasure in studying this field just as laymen - the complexity of life is a rewarding and fascinating study, particularly (for me) on the chemical level where complexity is unmistakable.
William Dembski's writing concerning specified complexity is highly informative, and I was drawn to his style of writing, which is clear and has a nice quality that combines information with accessibility. This was the first piece of writing I'd read by Dembski, and it led me to read with great pleasure his other books - books which impress by the scope and detail that he includes. Do not mistake - readers may disagree with William Dembski's viewpoint, but if they are intellectually honest, they have no business stating that his writing is scientifically flawed, intellectually incapable, or riddled with unproven assumptions. Au contraire. His work, on the basis of his published writings, is honest and demonstrative of a high degree of original and intelligent thought with a strong commitment to the evidence.
I should mention several things that might worry potential readers: all three writers are convinced by the raw data of the universe that the universe exhibits unmistakable evidence of design. Intelligent Design is a theory that states design can be detected, not by waving around a Bible, but by the evidence of the universe - the universal bound, probability theory, biochemistry, biology, these are the fields which yield information on this. Intelligent Design makes no claim about who this designer might be, what the purpose of this designer might be, etc. Critics of Intelligent Design who believe they are inflicting a killing blow by saying, "But there's no redundant pathway for this or that, so how intelligent is that?" are, I'm afraid, revealing that they have not read this book. Intelligent Design is so clearly delineated that a reader could scarcely miss it without wilfully deciding to close their eyes - and if a reader still remains confused, he is referred to Dembski's "The Design Revolution" where questions and answers are presented with the purpose of enlightening those who have become confused because they've assumed a meaning for Intelligent Design that comes from their own opinion or what has been said OF the Intelligent Design theory.
Secondly, I note that some reviewers have explicitly rejected Intelligent Design because they say it has philosophical or religious implications. That's irrelevant in assessing a theory and evidence, though. Neo-Darwinism has philosophical or religious implications, and that doesn't affect whether or not it is TRUE. The EVIDENCE ALONE ought to be that which is examined, and explicitly Darwinism has redefined the meaning of science since the propagation of the theory, upon the assumption that common descent is a fact. I contend that it's not up to scientists to redefine words - it's up to those who are experts in semantics. And particularly it is highly suspect to redefine a word so as to exclude competing theories a priori from examination of evidence. To force a particular filter for examination of data, and to force fields of research, based upon a faulty definition of science (by assuming natural mechanics are sufficient to describe the origin of life and those systems in nature exhibiting specified complexity) is a logical error of such magnitude that it creates a blinding supernova of unthinking assumption, and is already creating frustration and dead ends in scientific research.
To make it clear: whether a scientist believes in God or not is irrelevant to an examination of data. Examination of data is the first responsibility of that type of science which seeks to establish observable laws and phenomena, because without data confirming predictions, the various fields of science become nothing more than an enjoyable free-wheeling exercise in imagination. Theories are NECESSARY, though, in order to create predictions (often based on conditional arguments arising from a particular theory) which can then be tested. Historical science is, however, a different kettle of fossil fish. It is non-verifiable in the sense that the past cannot be recreated. But studies of origins are either equally unfalsifiable or equally falsifiable.
It is almost ludicrous that this book has garnered so many reviewers, in the sense that many excellent titles on Amazon have not even a tenth of the number of reviews. Are so many people reading this book? Having read through the reviews here, I cannot conclude that. At least half of the reviews are scathingly attacking the idea, not the book. I venture to say that the majority of the reviewers who have given low ratings for this book have done so without reading it. Perhaps some have read reviews of it. Perhaps some have read a carefully chosen extract from it on a website, together with anti-extract rhetoric designed to show the many "errors" the book has. But to have actually read the book would reveal a common dishonesty with out-of-context quotations when quoted by someone whose philosophical stance is diametrically opposed to that espoused by his opponent.
That is why I say simply... read the book. Judge its scientific credibility on the basis of what it says, not on the basis of what someone says it says. Do not be like those who read books such as "How to Learn Kafka In Ten Minutes" or "Easy Plato For Busy People" or "Einstein Made Simple!" or "Feynman for Dummies". If you want to know what Plato wrote, you read Plato, not someone's hashed-up interpretation of his writing. If you want to understand Einstein's Theory of Relativity, read his published papers - they're not out of print, and the man was a genius. If you want to read about the oft-quoted (tediously over-quoted) idea that the world believed in a flat earth at certain points in history and in certain cultures, it might just be a good idea for you to read the published primary sources rather than quote a frankly ludicrous modern retelling of history. You are guaranteed to be astonished by the cartographic and underlying geographical knowledge and assumptions of the ancient world, and the astonishing misinformation disseminated by people who have taken on board as fact modern myths that have no supporting data.
I have read most of the neo-Darwin literature - much of it was required reading. During my university studies, my questions and requests for data were shunted aside as irrelevant, and I was expected to "believe" in neo-Darwinism as an article of faith, on pains of being considered unscientific if I did not. I still preferred to make up my own mind on the basis of evidence... and to this day, I have the same approach. It is important to read Dawkins, Gould, etc., plus the published literature and published experiments in the journals - or at least, I found it important, because I wished to see (and continue to wish to see) what real evidence such an important theory has. I liked Dawkins' clear style, but his lack of substance and substitution of assumption for fact often frustrated me. Gould's ideas were always interesting, even though I felt they belonged more in science fiction than hard science. I would be fascinated and surprised to learn that those who believe tooth-and-nail in the Theory of Evolution as the explanation for life on earth have actually read all the books on the subject of Intelligent Design which they certainly imply they have. Why? Because Intelligent Design makes sense ON THE BASIS OF THE EVIDENCE, and ON THE BASIS OF SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION OF EVIDENCE. This book, to be specific, has certain arguments and a clear, unambiguous presentation of why neo-Darwinism, relying on naturalistic mechanisms of chance and necessity, actually does not provide a plausible explanation for the evidence. I would be bemused and pleased were my review to be instrumental in convincing anyone who thinks they know about Intelligent Design but haven't actually investigated it other than as a theory to shoot down by reading counter-arguments against it... to actually... read this book. I would that all human beings would think clearly and examine information without allowing bias to prevent an honest assessment. That's my hope. Honest assessment. Not brainwashing, not fine but empty rhetoric. Just honest assessment. By ALL MEANS read the counter-arguments. But don't do that without reading the arguments countered first... and not out of context. Read the book, then criticise. That's fair. If readers end up disagreeing, at least they would then do so on the basis of awareness and knowledge of what they criticise.
To the three authors of this book: thank you. Ultimately I enjoyed your writing, and I have found my interest in probability theory rekindled. I will continue to enjoy researching the complex systems in biological organisms, and I will always look for the universe to provide evidence, not my own wishes.
To sum up: it's no crime to have a philosophical, religious or metaphysical belief amounting to certainty. But that philosophical, religious or metaphysical belief MUST NOT filter out theories arising from the evidence. In other words, an intelligent appraisal of data should not include straitjacketing the data. One can PREFER a particular interpretation. One can BELIEVE in a particular interpretation. One can allow other factors (philosophy, metaphysics, religion, etc.) to impact upon one's belief of which interpretation or theory is correct. But that's got nothing - absolutely nothing - to do with real assessment of raw data. True science is not about commitment to a particular belief. It is about the great search for what is, because what is leaves unmistakable signs in the very complexity that specifies it - this we know without doubt. The human race did not know that a hundred years ago, before the strides in knowledge that encompass biochemistry and physics. A genuine search for truth in the universe's physical nature ought to be bounded by NO presuppositions. If the universe arose by chance, it won't be "proved" by disqualifying any other theory before the evidence is examined. If the universe arose by design, it won't be "proved" by assuming it is so. Assumption is a hindrance to honest assessment of the physical data - and a scientist ought not to put his assumptions in place BEFORE his assessment of data.
Let the evidence itself speak for itself.
Customer Reviews:
HOW CAN DARWINISM BE RIGHT? AN ANSWER TO ALL CRITICS.......1997-01-23
Dawkins has written the best book illustrating science to the public that I have ever read, and I have read hundreds.How can chance operate to create complex systems? This question recurred to me again and again although I thought I understood the theory of natural selection. My knowledge before Dawkins was half-baked. After Dawkins's tour through wonderland, I feel confident enough to teach the subject, and teach it I have to some creationist friends whose knowlege of Darwin before me was not even warm.
Part of the wonderland is the creation of Dawkins own mind. Who would think of a virus as a copy machine with one blueprint to copy (itself) but no paper? Its entry into a cell is like opening a paper warehouse to such a machine!
This is no easy read. Your boots need to be on for rough terrain, but you never slog through swamps. Everyone who is fascinated with science but find most explanations boring or overly technical will love this book. This is the way science ought to be taught. And you creationists out there who want to argue, try arguing against the facts presented here. Your views will be challenged.
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Origin and Evolution of the Universe: Evidence for Design
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Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe. (Book Review).: An article from: Catholic Insight
Leonard Kennedy
Manufacturer: Catholic Insight
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Release Date: 2005-07-29 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Catholic Insight, published by Catholic Insight on March 1, 2002. The length of the article is 739 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe. (Book Review).
Author: Leonard Kennedy
Publication:
Catholic Insight (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2002
Publisher: Catholic Insight
Volume: 10
Issue: 2
Page: 40(1)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Books:
- The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God
- The Constitution of the Roman Republic
- The Craft of Scientific Presentations: Critical Steps to Succeed and Critical Errors to Aviod
- The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
- The Federalist Papers (Signet Classics)
- The God Effect: Quantum Entanglement, Science's Strangest Phenomenon
- The Intention Experiment: Using Your Thoughts to Change Your Life and the World
- The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
- The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief
- The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Revised and Updated: The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late
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