Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Perspectives

I couldn't finish this book because I don't understand why it had to be written. The whole idea of intelligent design creationism is embarrassing at its very best. Pennock demolishes it almost as fast as it demolishes itself. Imagine a book this long refuting the Hollow Earth theory or the idea that the universe rests on the back of a giant turtle. Those who insist that intelligent design be taught in schools as science are either fools in their own right or pretending to hold that opinion for political reasons. The first group cannot understand an argument based on reason. The second group cannot afford to admit that they do. In either case, arguing with them is a waste of time.

I want to restate from the product description (and from Pennock's own introduction to this volume): It serves as a companion to  Tower of Babel: The Evidence against the New Creationism  For those pretending on either side that this volume should be "balanced" either didn't bother to read the product description (and the introduction) or are internally deluded as to what a book should be. I know of few books, films, articles that are in fact 'balanced', and typically the over emphasis on balance makes a work typically not useful.I freely admit that I have not read the work that this was intended to be a companion to, namely Pennock's Tower of Babel. So I am not quite sure that I can say that this volume is useful in that arena. Unfortunately though, most reviews of this volume seem to be reviewing the content (namely the ISSUE of ID/Creationism vs Critics) rather than the utility of this volume.As the title of my review suggests, this volume is NOT for the weak. It is a long, hard read. One truly needs to be dedicated to going through all the essays giving them a fair reading and thoughtful digesting to actually get out of this book what it offers.Particularly difficult was section VII, ID and Information. I struggled for hours upon hours trying to decode the essays in this section. The arcana of Information Theory left me feeling as if the authors (on BOTH sides) were trying to prove (or disprove) God's existence through statistics, reminding me of the joke about statisticians going hunting:"One hunter shot at the duck 1 yard too high. One hunter shot at the duck 1 yard too low. The third statistician yelled "We got him!"This volume is probably good as a study supplement on the topic of ID and Criticism, but I am not too sure it is great for the average lay person trying to get an easy handle on the topic.There is one bias in this volume that I have not seen addressed in the reviews here (and one could well be misinformed about it by reading the reviews): Fully 2/3 of this book is filled with essays by theists: Evolutionary Theists arguing with ID/Creationism Theists. To be honest, after reading their respective essays, I have to say that the ID/Creationism Theists SEEM more honest and convincing. The pretzel twisting, logic looping, scripture reinterpretation of the Evolutionary Theists is dizzying. I say this as an Evolutionary Atheist. One thing that I did take away from these arguments, is that I am more and more convinced by Richard Dawkin's proposition that Evolution does lead to atheism.The quality of the writing in this volume is all over the place in all honesty. Some of it is clear, straightforward and understandable. Phillip Johnson (whom I totally disagree with the conclusions he draws, and the 'honesty' of his arguments) writes cogently and understandable. Similarly, Barbara Forest writes a strong and coherent essay. As for the bulk of the essays in this volume, I am not so willing to be so generous.Ultimately, if You wade through this volume, You WILL be rewarded with a broad overview of the general complexity of the issues of ID/Creationism and It's Critics. It does seem, at times, a very long way to get there though!

This book looks very thorough - how could more than 800 pages of text by 25 authors be anything but thorough? It also looks very balanced: although it consists principally of attacks on ID, it does publish several articles by ID theorists and their admirers. Although Pennock does not give "equal time" to the ID movement, he acknowledges this openly in his introduction.But why is the book entitled Intelligent Design Creationism, a term never used by either the ID proponents or the creationists? Why is this term repeated throughout the book, as if it was commonly accepted? I would suggest that the word is used to inspire prejudice, because it already stands condemned. Creationism has been designated unconstitutional and unscientific by US Supreme Court. Pennock claims that ID is just a new form of creationism with a name change and an image update. In one sense, he's correct, as all ID proponents believe in creation. However, William Dembski has clearly explained the very significant differences between creationism and ID (the latter does not support a young Earth or 6-day creation, and argues exclusively from science, never from the Bible). Even Pennock himself says he wanted to publish an article by Henry Morris, the father of creation science, expressing disapproval of ID.Pennock's criticism of Phillip Johnson does a remarkable job of making Johnson's clear and convincing arguments sound confused and muddled. Most of his criticism is based on what he imagines Johnson is trying to say rather than what he actually says. He repeatedly misquotes and distorts Johnson's words; for example, he makes the absurd accusation that Johnson wants scientists to incorporate religious conclusions into their experiments. He quotes Johnson's statement that "It may well be, however, that there are certain questions... that cannot be answered by the methods available to our science. These may include not only broad philosophical issues such as whether the universe has a purpose, but also questions we have become accustomed to think of as empirical, such as how life began or how complex biological systems were put together," then comments: "The sly implication here is that the "sacred books" and "mystical states of mind" may be appropriate ways to answer empirical as well as teleological questions." How can such a complete distortion of Johnson's words, be a "sly implication"?Over and over, Pennock berates Johnson and his colleagues for making claims without evidence. He also suggests that they have some sort of secret agenda and that they are only revealing a tiny part of it; ironically, he can offer no evidence for this claim. He dismisses the entire design argument with the simplistic assertion that "Darwin showed how simple natural processes could explain such adaptations." Again, he provides no evidence, no page reference to justify this extraordinary over-simplification.The farcical nature of the book is best shown when Pennock includes a single 16-page article by Michael Behe to represent ID's entire scientific claims. The book claims to be about ID and science, yet only 2% of its length is devoted to this all-important issue.The article is followed by a criticism by Philip Kitcher of Behe's book Darwin's Black Box. Kitcher ignores most of Behe's arguments and resorts to sarcasm, ridicule and name-calling - the usual tactics of those who have nothing intelligent to say. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that Kitcher has read Behe's book: it appears, rather, that he has dipped into it at a few points to find things to complain about.Those who have read Behe would be aware of the enormously detailed picture he gives of the operation of the cilium and (to a lesser extent) of the flagellum as examples of irreducible complexity. Ignoring the cilium completely, Kitcher says: "Here's a simple-minded version of the argument. Assume that the flagellum needs 137 proteins. Then Darwinians are required to produce a sequence of 138 organisms, the first having none of the proteins and each one having one more protein than its predecessor. Now, we're supposed to be moved by the plight of organisms numbers 2 to 137, each of which contains proteins that can't serve any function, and is therefore, presumably, a target of selection." This is a complete travesty of Behe's argument, which does not even mention the sequence of 137 proteins! Behe argued that the structure of the flagellum was not only enormously complex but incredibly precise, so that it could not function without every one of its parts perfectly designed and in place. In other words, Kitcher has made a thoroughly dishonest attempt to make the argument look simple-minded; he goes on to compound his dishonesty by insisting that Behe's argument is "just plain silly."Not surprisingly, Behe is not given a chance to reply to this defamation.There is a great deal more that could be said about a book this size, but most of it adds up to the same conclusion. There are, admittedly, some bright spots. Some of the articles are reasonable. In particular, there is one criticism of Johnson (by Nancey Murphy) which is not only intelligent and well-argued, but actually fair. It is almost as if this article was included to show that, despite what the rest of the book demonstrates, a real dialogue between Darwinism and ID may be possible.