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Review Summary: The Bankruptcy of Evolutionary theory |
Date: 2008-08-08 |
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Details: Excellent continuation on the history of the conflict between Intelligent Design and Evolutionary theory. It shows increasing evidence that the theory of Evolution has no answer for the origin of complex biologic macromolecules and the origin of life. The defenders of Evolutionary theory are left primarily with increasingly strident personal or ad hominem attacks on the proponents of ID. |
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Review Summary: A Good Expose of One Sector of Society Conspiring Against Others |
Date: 2008-07-25 |
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Details: Ever since Stephen Gould reacted in a domineering manner to full public view in his diatribe against Phillip Johnson at the Campion meeting in 1989, evolutionists have used their superior social and economic position to maintain a scientific hegemony in American society. Given inquiring minds, this situation cannot continue forever. Any sector of society in charge of leading human institutions that can be demonstrated to be more involved with maintaining the status quo for its own particular interests rather than managing it well, more involved with closing off inquiry than expanding and enlightening it, more involved with promoting group paranoia with an eye to subjugate certain people than promoting honest, open intellectual dialog, and more involved with conspiring to withold the truth about its own actions than ethically monitoring and regulating them for the greater social good is no better than the KKK, McCarthyism, or Stalin. That sector should be assumed to be involved in the act of tyranny--in this case the intellectual subjugation of American society.
This book is an honest, open analysis of the situation. I use it as one of my sources for an expose of a serious injustice that is continuing unrestrained out in the open in our society. It is an excellent historical contribution--an even-handed treatment--much better than the one-sided, narrow-minded evolution books on the topic in my opinion. Woodward and Dembski (in the foreword)are both excellent writers and Woodward is a superb historian in general(as unbiased as anyone can be in an area of professional interest). I was a history graduate student for one semester before turning to anthropology studies and have read much worse accounts from famous American historians. I particularly like Woodward's presentation style. It makes the book an enjoyable, satisfying read. You will enjoy reading this book if you are either professionally interested in the history of the intelligent design movement or personally curious about it. If you are of either persuasion, it is currently the best tome out there on the topic in my view. I recommend you get it and read it today.
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Review Summary: Well written and concise recent history |
Date: 2008-04-25 |
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Details: This book has been reviewed pretty well and pretty thoroughly by several other reviewers, so I'm not going to be adding a lot, but I wanted to contribute a little here. As others have stated, this is mostly a history of the ID movement, and necessarily contains an expose, if you will, of the problems both with Darwinism and with his more fanatical followers. As shown in the new documentary by Ben Stein, a lot of people seem much more interested in ending debate than in discovering truth- using the Al Gore logic that the debate is over, so any disagreement amounts to an attack on Science itself. The problems with this are not too difficult to enumerate, and he does a good job at letting the facts speak for themself.
I liked his pointing out that Behe's Black Box was such a key work that ratcheted up the quality and rigor of the debate, as this confirmed a personal observation, and many of the other books he picked as important, such as Icons of Evolution, were ones that I respect as well. I also liked getting an outline of the "struggle" as well as a bit of analysis of why it exists at all and why it has taken some of the turns it has taken. Very insightful.
In summary, a good history- including information about pro-Darwin books that have made cases and even pointed out places where ID arguments need refinement of further development. I'm sure it will be called biased, and I'm sure it is in a way, but it is not malicious or snarky by and large, and is well worth adding to your library in order to gain a helpful overview of the Design Wars.
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Review Summary: Best Evidence for a Parallell Universe |
Date: 2008-04-08 |
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Details: In George Orwell's classic book 1984, we are warned against the idea that enough propoganda can virtually create a reality. If you say it enough, peolpe will just start to believe it. Shoud you want to sell a war that doesn't exist - like the government in Orwell's book did - just proclaim loudly enough that the war exists, and people will start to believe you.
This is the case - in spades - with Woodward's book chronicling the recent history of the ID/evolution "controversy." Just as authors like David Irving use clever rhetoric to argue that Hitler was a nice guy who had no idea that Jews were being exterminated, so Woodward works to try and convince us that ID is causing evolutionists to run scared. And the intersting thing is that Woodward is a historian of science focusing on, of all things, rhetoric.
Woodward's stated goal in this book is to expose evolutinist's critiques of Inteligent Design and, in so doing, show that they employ much more rhetoric than science and logic. In so doing, however, Woodward pours on a hefty dose of rhetoric himself.
First, he turns on the 'war metaphor' throughout the whole book. As an illlustration, Woodward writes, "The historicla pattern that followed the release of [Michael] Behe's book in late July of 1996 might be compared to an army's coordinated sweep up a steep mountainous terrain to capture a crucial fortress." An objective history? I think not. Exposing the rhetoric of others should not be so... rhetorical.
In Woodward's view, every new Intelligent Design book is a "bombshell" or a "bunker buster," while critiques of ID are never called anything so exciting. Similarly, Woodward takes evolutionists to task several times for calling ID theorists "creationists" (of course, all ID theorists argue precisely that there was a creation by a designer!). Of course, his calling all evolutionists "darwinists" (a term rarely used amongst those who defend the theory of evolution, as the theory is only one-part Darwin by now) is not, but should be, labeled by Woodward as similarly dismissive.
Seeing as the theory of ID is, in reality, not such a scientific threat as Woodward wants us to believe, he must - and does - inflate every small victory he can get. For instance, when he mentions a book supporting ID that has been published by an academic press (a very few in number!), he takes great pains to tell the reader which press it was published by (xx, published by xx press.") Of course, all of the pro-evolution tracts he mentions were published by academic presses too, but he does not afford these books thE same courtesy. (It is assumed that books on evolution are generally published by academic presses; not so for ID.)
Woodward's use of end notes is little short of embarassing and dishonest. Just a few examples will suffice. In the penultimate chapter, Woodward writes that, "Biologists in recent years have suggested seeing this structure [of the eye] as vastly superior." (p. 168) Curious as to who these biologists are? (I never knew of any who did that.) Woodward cites William Dembski - a mathemetician, not a biologist. The book he cites is published not by an academic press, but by InterVarsity press (a christian publisher!). In chapter 7, Woodward writes, "How do Darwinists handle the infamous gaps in the fossil record, where transitional forms are notoriously scares (or nonexistent)? (p. 99) In the footnote, Woodward quitly softens his strong statement by noting that "'nonexistent' could be rephrased as 'virtually nonexistent'? If it COULD be rephrased that way, why wasn't it done so in the text? Probably because the word "nonexistent" sounds much stronger than "virtually nonexistent," so if he relegates the ammendation to the footnote, people are less likely to see the word "virtually" and, instead, stick with the much stronger "nonexistent."
I do all of this simply to show that throughout the book, Woodward engages in some very clever tricks (even ones that he accuses others of). Just as one more example, he, several times, quotes very stern evolutionists as supporting his ID thesis by taking statements out of context. The two typical examples are Steven Jay Gould (a notorious anti-creationist who had doubs only about GRADUALISM in evolution), and Paul Davies (a physicist who believed only that presently known laws were not sufficient to understand observed levels of complexity, but according to Woodward and, before him, Johnson, is simply an ID theorist who has succumbed to the pressure of his peers.)
I would strongly advise anyone who reads this book and finds it convincing to also read Forrest and Gross's "Creationism's Trojan Horse." both books, it must be said, are highly rhetorical, but Forrest and Gross deal handily with all of Woodward's quips and, needless to say, come up with a very different (and WELL documented) picture. (Where Woodward's book has 11 pages of very questionable end-notes, Forrest and Gross are careful to document everything, offering 71 pages of very highly detailed end-notes.
It is not my style to engage in such a long review of a book, but after reading this one, I really do feel that it is quite deceptive and dishonest. Were Woodward to be believed without question, evolution are running scared and near collapse, ID is right around the corner as its successor, and the world of science is in complete turmoil. That is simply NOT the case: ID has produced one paper to date in a science journal, has published a handful of books by academic presses (wich explains Woodward's rush to let us know what books and what presses), and there is not one University-affiliated research organization working on ID (there is, of cousre, the privately funded Discovery Institute, which 'publishes' most of their findings on their beautiful website!).
To illustrate the point, I leave you with a great line from Woodward's own work which, when read critically, supports what I have said above about the relative LACK of buzz in science about ID.
"On the other side is the spectacle of support or cooperation flowing to the Design Movement... even including evolutionary biologists and paleontologists..."
Now, just for a second, think about whether a writer about evolution would feel the need tell us that SOME of the support for evolution "includes biologists and paleontologists." Now, ask yourself why such a tidbit would simply be assumed. Now, ask yourself why Woodward felt it necessary to mention this tidbit explicity. Get the idea?
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Review Summary: Awesome Piece of Work |
Date: 2008-02-28 |
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Details: When I first started reading this book, I asked myself why I had spent more money to buy another book which exposes the frailty of Darwinian or neo-Darwinian evolution. I'd already researched the topic quite thoroughly in order to write a novel about it. As a result of my attitude, I was a little lukewarm as I began to turn the pages of this work. As I continued to progress into the interior of the text, I discovered the contents were quite a bit different from the other books I had read. This was more like a history of the recent emergence of Intelligent Design and the reactions of the evolution evangelists to attempt to suppress the spread of this malignancy. Proponents of ID have the audacity to question the ethical and intellectual right of scientists to search for only materialistic, aka natural, explanations for the origins of life.
Mr. Woodward handles the pen (or this case keyboard) like a skillful fencer. The cry of touché would be heard over and over again as he parries and thrusts with crisp, clean and sometime beautiful prose. This author is an excellent writer, and he has produced an excellent chronology of the ID war - and yes, war is an inappropriate analogy. I'm very glad that I bought this one. It has brought the picture of the state of the debate into high-definition clarity for me. I found it very interesting the Woodward suggests that the tactics and strategy of the evolutionist establishment will be factor in causing the downfall of Darwinian paradigm. Can anyone say 'phlogiston?'
Donald James Parker
Author of All the Voices of the Wind
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out of 24 Reviews
