Customer Reviews

The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

This is an excellent introduction to scientific evidence for a creative agent. Although I found some of the criticisms of Darwinism a wee bit ad-hoc, the book as a whole has some powerful arguments from the likes of some of the more noteworthy theists such as JP Moreland, Michael Dembski and Hugh Ross. Ross' essay was probably the best in the book as it dealt with clear, un-ambiguous evidence for a supreme mind. There is also an interesting article on the specificity of language being a sound analogy to the specificity & complexity of DNA.

Now, many of the reviewers who gave it one star do not appear to have even read it. Two of them bragged as much. Regardless of the subject matter of a book, I often find it difficult to review a work w/out reading it. I can only cast my suspicion on other people's ability to do so.

One of the most frequent criticisms of "Creationism" (for lack of a better term) is that it is unfalsifiable & therefore bad science. I concede the point that it is unfalsifiable, but I would caution an atheist against calling it bad science.

Most physicists believe they have it all figured out up to 10^-43 power of one second after the Big Bang (known as the Planck Epoch). Beyond this instant (an incredibly small instant) the universe existed in the state of a singularity of infinite density and infinite temperature. The laws of physics as we know and love them came into being at 10^-43 of one second. Therefore, if the atheist is not to insert an arbitrary double-standard, ALL speculations and theories of "what happened before" MUST be labeled as bad science. I know of few atheists who are willing to demote Sagan's oscillating universe theory or the universe as a quantum-fluctuation-gone-awry paradigm as bad science. However, the atheist cannot have it both ways.

Also, due to the enormous "specificity" in the laws of physics which were necessary for life (also known as the Anthropic Principle) the rival claim of the atheist to an intelligent designer is the multiple universe theorem. The idea is that since the odds are so incredible that a universe such as ours' could have emerged from a singularity "just so" (according to the British physicist Roger Penrose the odds are of the magnitude of 10^10^123), there must be many (perhaps an infinite number) of alternate universes. Why? To justify this one. Otherwise, it is mathematically unacceptable to believe that this could be the only universe and yet it turned out "just so."

Now, I have no problem with atheists formulating hypotheses such as this. However, when they do so they are commiting the same "crime" that they are accusing the Creationists of. Again, you can't have it both ways.

Ultimately, whatever one tries to "place" before the Planck epoch and "outside" this universe is going to be a bad Hypothesis. Period. No matter if it comes from the calibre of a scientist such as Feynman, Dyson or Hawking, it is STILL incapable of being proven or disproven. So, all we can do is take the data that is inside THIS universe & make our inference from there. This book is a good tool for those on both sides of the debate to do just that. If you are close minded (as most of the 1 star reviewers are), there is no need to bother reading any books in the realm of cosmology.

For futher reading on the Anthropic Principle I would recommend "Universes" by the philospoher of science John Leslie. A great book.

In this book J.P. Moreland and a panel of scholars assert that there is actually substantial evidence pointing towards intelligent design. First, they consider philosophical arguments about whether it is possible for us to know if an intelligent designer had a hand in creation. Then they look directly at four different areas of science: the origin of life, the origin of major groups of organisms, the origin of human language, and the origin and formation of the universe. This collection of original essays is perhaps the most significant formulation of the design argument yet written. Jeffery Jay Lowder, Internet Infidels

I will make a few remarks about the question of the "scientific"status of the Intelligent Design Theory, which is the issue most discussed in the book (which is not about religion, contrary to what some reviewers claim, and of whom I doubt that they ever even had the book in their hands.) The first chapters of the books deal with the philosophy of the natural sciences. Among others, the authors review all the leading philosophers of the natural sciences and show that it is impossible to define what "science" is (and I would argue that this is due the current use of the word "science" in the Anglo-Saxon world, which is an inheritance of positivism.) Also using all the criteria that have been advanced to demarcate "science" from "non-science" they show that Intelligent Design Theory (IDT) has to be considered as science. BTW, also specially interesting is William Dembski's (a thinker who seems to have a very promising academic career) essay where he shows that it is possible to empirically detect intelligence in nature. Dembski's computational model does not consider quantum physics, but moving to the quantum scale would not change anything to the idea of his argument, given that there are mathematical computation that would exhaust the possible numbers of quantum states.

The authors are successful in their argumentation for the scientific status of design. I have followed the angry books & articles that have since then attacked design, and I am still awaiting a succesful rebutal (and not a dishonest strawman attack or name-calling IDT theology or creationism) of their arguments. The absence of honest and valid rebuttals confirm the success of their arguments, and this is no wonder since they were in line with the leading philosophers of Science, such as Larrry Laudan, etc.

However I have a critic: the authors could have been much stronger in their argumentation. They have accepted the current use of the word "science" in the Anglo-saxon world, not seeing that this use results from the influence of positivism and pragmatism. They could have been much stronger by refuting this positivist use, and even simply rejecting it. The word "science" comes from the Latin "scientia" which means knowledge, and was used to designate organized, systematized knowledge (that is academic disciplines uncovering knowledge.) In most European countries, in languages like French, German, Dutch, (I am a French who works in the Netherlands, and part of my academic education was in Germany), the word "science" ("science" also in French, "Wissenschaft" in German and "wetenschap" in Dutch) is applicable for all academic disciplines. For example we speak in French (and the same is true with Dutch and German) of the "sciences religieuses" (religious sciences", which include theological disciplines for example) and the "sciences humaines" ("human sciences", which include for example history, psychology, sociologie, etc.) The same used to be true of the English language before this was changed in English by the domination of positivism and pragmatism (at the beginning of the 20th century? ) (the meaning of the word "science"has been kept in a few words like "omniscience" which still means "knowledge of everything"). Positivism and pragmatism are now dead, and it would have been quite easy and powerful to challenge the current Anglo-Saxon positivist use of the word "science." And besides, the authors could have pointed out that most of those who nowadays pass for "scientists" have been educated to make some computations and some experiences, but have no training in philosophy so that they know nothing of the structure and justification of knowledge, many are in some respects more technicians who are not so able to really "think" like a true scientist (dealing with knowledge) should (look at collection of philosophical absurdities and naivety in the "scientific" popular books of Dawkins, Davies and Hawking, and even the metaphysical absurdity of Hawking's use of imaginary time in his famous no-boundary proposal), and in this way no real "scientists" (capable of truly dealing with knowledge). And I do not speak as an outsider, but I say this having myself had such a so-called "scientific" education, and now that I have been reading much philosophy I realize how much I missed.

I will stop it here and will not discuss the other part of the book, where IDT is applied succesfully (and so far without valid rebuttal that I know of) to some specific fields (astrophysics, biochemistry, natural history and linguistics / anthropology.)

This is what a teleological argument should look like. Moreland is concise and logical as always. Dhembski's philosophical spadework is GREAT. But Meyer's contribution seems a bit irrelevent. In terms of the actual evidence: Hugh Ross does a pretty good job in physics, cosmology, and astronomy. Bradly and Thraxton are EXCELLENT in analyzing the origin of life! Geologist Kurt P. Wise has some very clever arguments on the fossil record. The language guys are inferior, though. I am majoring in both philosophy and biology and enjoyed the combination of both science and philosophy. Usually books on evolution and such overkill on evidence without ever putting it in the form of a valid argument. And I am talking about both theists and non-theists. The book is written professionally so those who wish to do more research will find the endnotes and bibliography very helpful. esp Yockey's book.

This early volume exploring some of the current intelligent design arguments contains essays by numerous Discovery Fellows. Philosopher J.P. Moreland explains that a philosophical view called "scientism" has become prevalent in academia. Scientism, in its various forms, holds that only scientifically verifiable truth has any real value.

Following Moreland's introduction, Stephen C. Meyer argues that the theories of intelligent design and common descent are "methodologically equivalent" theories which should both be considered as legitimate fields of historical science. William Dembski explains how observations which cannot be accounted for using known probabilistic resources imply that some intelligence might be at work. Hugh Ross lists a large number of physical laws and finely-tuned parameters which imply that some intelligence designed the universe to be hospitable for advanced, intelligent life. Charles Thaxton and Walter Bradley explain that the fundamental challenge facing origin of life researchers lies in the origin of information. These assembly instructions for life are not specified by natural laws.

The volume also tackles the fossil record. Kurt Wise explains that transitional forms are rare or completely absent from the fossil record. But Wise also explains that an intelligent agent could account for the nested hierarchy of the organization of life's major groups. Finally, John Oller and John Omdahl explain that there is a distinct break between the cognitive capabilities of apes and humans. Apes cannot bridge "Einstein's gulf," the ability to use abstract representations, nor do they display the ability nor desire to ask deep questions.

This volume provides an early look at many of the leading arguments for intelligent design.

A well written and thought provoking book that is detailed and scientifically valid. Those who state otherwise either have not read the book, or do not know how to conduct philosophic and scientific inquiry.

J. P. Moreland and a panel of experts consider philosophical arguments about whether it is possible for us to know if an intelligent Designer had a role in creation. Then they evaluate the creation hypothesis against scientific evidence in four different areas: the origin and formation of the universe, the origin of life, the origin of major groups of organisms, and the origin of human language.

The team of experts assembled for this work includes a philosopher, a mathemetician, a physicist, a linguist, a theologian, a biophysicist, an astronomer, a chemist, and a paleontologist.

The contributors include Stephen C. Meyer, William A. Dembski, Hugh Ross, Walter L. Bradley, Charles B. Thaxton, Kurt P. Wise, John W. Oller, John L. Omdahl, John Ankerberg, and John Weldon.

Their data and their conclusions challenge the assumptions of many and offer the foundation for a new paradigm of scientific thinking.

I would honestly have titled this book "The Creation Explanation: Why Creation is just as good an explanation as Evolution is". This is precisely what this book attempts to do. I found the scientific evidence to be lacking. This book is not completely bad. In fact..I have found some good material in the book along with some bad material in the book. Let's take a look.

The first section of the book was on the philosophical question of design. I didn't care for Moreland's essay critiquing methodological naturalism. Honestly I found it hard to stay awake reading his material because his points are convoluted and hard to follow at times. Meyer's essay was great except that he needlessly makes both design and descent to be mutually exclusive. They need not be. Design and descent can be integrated into a theory of theistic evolution. What Meyer has in mind are creation and evolution. Creation is not the same thing as design, for creation is more of a typological theory of design: it places fixed limits on variation and supposes that there is a archetype for each group of animals. Design by itself does not require this. Demski's essay was as good as Meyers, although Demski is quick to rule out superluminal physics as a cause for his hypothetical talking pulsar for no well-argued reason. ( No offense Bill, but have you heard of Bell's Theorem, the Innsbrunk experiment? Not that I buy into non-locality in physics but Demski needs to elaborate more on why we shouldn't buy into non-locality).

This is all I can say is good about the book. The science section was pretty bad. The first is an essay by Hugh Ross on how astronomy supports the creation hypothesis via the big bang. As typical Ross constructs a big bang argument for a Creator despite the fact we don't have a quantum theory of gravity. He doesn't attempt to answer the arguments of Halton Arp in this essay nor does he attempt to answer my argument about the possiblility of energy being supernaturally replinished in a singularity in the cycling universe theory. I have explained in a separate review why Ross's arguments are flawed. The next essay on the origin of life. I skipped over this one because I felt that I was not informed enough to critique it. After that is an essay by Kurt Wise on the origin of major groups. This essay was flimsy! I was expecting Wise to produce some scientific evidence for his Creator. Wise does nothing of the sort! Wise goes through the traditional case for evolution. It was poorly critiqued. For instance, Wise doesn't provide a good explanation of vestigial organs other than that they lost function some time ago. A book has been written debunking the vestigial organs argument ( "Vestigial Organs are Fully Functional" by George Howe and Jerry Bergman). Wise should have either adopted some of their arguments or at least made a reference to them or this book of theirs! The arguments debunking the case for evolution appear too simplistic and superficial! What's worse is that he doesn't produce any evidence for creation or design. He just argues that complexity and organization in nature are "unexplained" anamolies and that creation is just as good as an explanation! Hold it! Wise gives NO justification for this because he doesn't discuss any criteria for detecting intelligent design or how this organization, complexity or integration bears marks of design according to any accepted criteria for design. THAT is what scientific evidence I would have been looking for: Wise just argues that creation is just as good an explanation if not better than naturalistic evolution. Come on!

I was so disappointed I didn't even bother to read the last essay. The authors pretty much shot their project in the foot! As if that wasn't enough..two more Christian authors put a bunch of quotes in the appendix as an appeal to authority as to how serious in trouble evolution really is. Well, no offense guys, but if I didn't find the case in the essays all that convincing what makes you guys think an appeal to authority using quotes is going to be any more convincing. (It's just icing on the cake..to remove any last lingering doubts for readers not 100% convinced that creation is a better explanation than naturalistic evolution is.)

I found it hard to rate this book. I had to balance the good with the outright bad. It has some value to it. I would very cautiously recommend this book just as a starting point on the subject for further investigation. This book should only get people to ask themselves "Is Design a legitimate explanation after all?" and nothing more. The book's title was misleading, a unnecessary essay or two was added in (yes, Moreland and Ross, I mean you). People should be open-minded yet very cautious and extremely critical when reading this book!

Readers who are looking for an overview of intelligent design will enjoy this book. Intelligent design is system of proof showing the improbably long odds of the chance formation of the universe (finely balanced to support life) or the origins of life on earth.

The contributions of writers like Dr. Ross and others break down a consistent explanation of intelligent design from the inception of the cosmos through the creation of human beings. For readers who have already read a number of books on the subject, the book has an article on the origin of human language which is especially interesting.

I would give the book five stars but the first third of the book, written by J.P. Moreland, is confusing. Mr. Moreland is a philosopher who manages to make the simple concept of whether evolution is a philosophy more difficult to understand than any other scientific topic presented in the book. For those looking for another book to buy on the subject, by far, the best books are written by Dr. Hugh Ross.

I too think that J.P. Moreland could have done a better job.The rest of the book is fantastic and offers great insight into the positive evidence for an intelligent designer, however, Dr.Hugh Ross does a much job at what J.P.Moreland was trying to say.

Genuine Scientists ARE NOT Threatened by Opposing Views and Welcome New Scientificly Based Perspectives. (Its Called Open Mindedness)

However, Darwinian Mainstreamers Continuously SUPRESS The Cross-Examining of Evolutionary "suppositions" From Creation Scientists.

There Are Numerous Conflicts With the MODEL of Macro-Evolution And NO Scientific Journal Offers Even A Simple Explaination of "Molecular Evolution" Let Alone Evolution of The Human Eye And Immune System.

Irresponsible DARWINIAN Bias Is Under Serious Fire! The Evolutionary Ban-Wagoners Cannot Seem to Reverse Public Concern And Dreadfully FEAR The Exposing of Counter-Scientific Arguments.

Please Read DARWIN'S BLACK BOX: Michael J. Behe