Customer Reviews

Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Dembski and Ruse's anthology grew out of a common desire to help clarify and understand the Intelligent Design (ID) debate; Dembski, a mathematician and philosopher, is one of the chief proponents of Intelligent Design, whereas Ruse, a prominent philosopher of biology, is a strong proponent of neo-Darwinism. This collection is noted for its balance and respectful tone among its many eminent contributors, both of which are generally lacking in one of the most hotly-debated topics in modern science.

Contributors from across the spectrum of positions regarding evolution, religion, and Intelligent Design were grouped into four main sections and an introductory session , which contains the editors' introduction and two brief essays on the history of the Intelligent Design movement. While those two essays are by opponents of ID, they do a good, respectful job of encapsulating some of the chief events and players in the movement.

Part I brings us to the meat of the debate, with several powerful critiques of ID. It begins with a historical piece on Darwinism's impact and development by AAAS president Francisco Ayala. Also notable is a critique of the ID movement's use of the bacterial flagellum, whose "irreducible complexity" the ID movement holds
cannot be explained by gradual evolution. This piece was written by a practicing Catholic named Kenneth Miller--I was gratified that the ID vs. Darwinism debate was not being cast a purely science v. religion debate, and that in fact that there are
religious believers represented in this collection with a broad spectrum of perspectives and positions.

Part II is on "Complex Self Organization", with good articles by physicist and scientific popularizer Paul Davies and historian of science Paul Barham. Stuart Kauffman's article, which begins this section, is actually the introductory chapter of his book "Investigations", and so mentions many things but never discusses
anything in depth, being just an introduction. While quite disappointing, the other contributors in this section develop Kauffman's ideas as they explore whether biochemistry can generate complex systems (such as proto-cells and metabolic
networks) without intelligent intervention. This may be, conceptually speaking, the richest chapter in the anthology.

Part III, "Theistic Evolution": Various religious contributors propose philosophies that reconcile evolution and religion. Many of these contributors are as critical of ID as they are with the ultra-Darwinists like Dawkins. Of particular note is Michael Roberts' critique of ID and the fossil record of life on Earth.

Part IV, "Intelligent Design": finally, the ID theorists themselves, including Dembski and Behe, get the floor. Dembski and Behe's articles didn't overwhelm me with their persuasiveness, but did help me get a clearer idea of what they have to say. The strongest piece here is probably Baylor's on entropy and biological polymers, and the problems such calculations raise for the emergence of early life.

If one is looking for polemics against either position in this debate, or a knock-down argument one way or another, this book will disappoint you, as it seems to have done with a couple other reviewers. As with many debates, the debaters seem to talk past each other at points, but the book is full of citations, and has given me a good springboard for investigating controversies in evolution and the philosophy of biology. The book also presents a range of opinions and directions for future inquiry, rather than some artificially polarized argument with no room for a middle ground. For those reasons, plus the very civil tone amongst the debaters regarding an issue that can get both sides so worked up, I can give this collection five stars. I do not see a better survey of this debate being publish for some time.

This book has quite a bit to recommend it. Most books that attempt to survey the debates between the Darwinian thought, the dominant paradigm in evolution, have a clearly defined axe to grind, but this volume includes an equal number of essays by both defenders of Darwinian orthodoxy and ID theorists. Significantly, it also includes chapters dealing with more nuanced perspectives, including theistic evolution and some of the preliminary work of theorists who suggest an as yet undiscovered "law" of complex organization. This latter group is an important, but often overlooked, set of Darwin critics. Nonetheless, for most readers, and certainly the bulk of reviewers, it will be the debate between the ID theorists and the defenders of NDE that commands the most attention.

The first two essays of the book, by Michael Ruse and Agnus Menuge provide a broader context for the debate. Ruse reviews the use of design arguments throughout history and explains why Darwin's 'Origin of Species' was apparently so devastating to most of them. Menuge's essay reviews some of the recent literature on the debate, in particular Barbara Forrest's influential Creationism's Trojan Horse written with Paul Gross. The latter, like many "critiques" of intelligent design was more a misrepresentation and ad hominem attack than a thoughtful study.

Perhaps the most interesting exchange in this volume is between Kenneth Miller and Michael Behe. Miller attempts to undermine Behe's claim that the flagellum is an irreducibly complex structure. Accepting Behe's argument that such structures have multiple components, and his claim that if any one of those components are missing, the structure ceases to function, Miller proceeds to argue that the flagellum is not irreducibly complex. In particular, he claims the Type Three Secretory System (TTSS) found in some pathogenic bacteria is in fact subset of the materials used to build the flagellum, and since the TTSS is "functional" this in an of itself dismisses with intelligent design, or at the very least, with the concept of irreducible complexity. Behe responds to this, and other criticisms of a similar nature, by noting that Miller has not, in fact, addressed his argument. The flagellum is irreducibly complex because it ceases to function "as a flagellum" if any one part is removed. That portions of a flagellum might have other uses is hardly to the point. Referring back to his famous mousetrap analogy, Behe notes that any given piece of a mousetrap might have some other use: the base, for example, could also be used as a paperweight. But these alternate uses do not mitigate the problem of having all the pieces come together, in a precise and orderly fashion, in order to gain a new function that was neither present beforehand, nor could be subject to natural selection since missing multiple portions renders the function to be selected useless. In short, by pointing to the TTSS, Miller is pointing to yet another irreducibly complex system, and using it to "explain" the flagellum. This reviewer found Miller's arguments very powerful on a rhetorical level, but Behe's response convincing. I had a similar reaction to the essays by Robert Pennock and Stephen Meyer.

But in this book the design theorists do not always have the last word. The essay by Elliot Sober stands on its own as the most powerful critique of design I have ever read, and none of the other authors, nor indeed the reviewers, seem to have fully taken cognizance of it. In brief, Sober argues that the detection of design requires not one but two filters. The first may well resemble one that Dembski has proposed in his book The Design Inference but the second is the unspoken assumption that we would recognize the motives of a designer. Of course, we all make design assumptions all the time, as Dembski notes in his own essay. But implicit in those assumptions, according to Sober, is the recognition that we know, if not the motives, at the least the general methods of the designer. We know this because the designers we have encountered in our own lives are human, and therefore much like ourselves. But what can we assume to know about a designer of life and how s/he(it) would, or would not, operate? Frequently advocates of intelligent design point to the SETI project as an example of how design inferences can be applied to a foreign intelligence. But Sober is skeptical that anything, even something as apparently universal as a series of prime numbers, would necessarily be recognized by a truly foreign intelligence as evidence of design. And there is little reason, he adds, for assuming that we would recognize the purposeful designs of other alien intelligences, much less of God.

The interesting thing about Sober's argument is that it apparently undermines not just intelligent design, but also one of the main arguments for Darwinian Evolution. This is the argument from "imperfect" or flawed designs. Darwinians frequently complain that the presence of "flaws" in the designs we observe, for example the panda's thumb, is evidence against intelligent design. But this argument, which is as old as The Origin of Species itself, and which is made repeatedly in Darwinian apologetics, from Philip Kitcher's recent Living with Darwin to the essay by Francisco Ayala in this volume, presumes more about that nature of a designer than any ID theorist every has. There is no reason to suppose a designer would chose "perfection" as an object of design. If Sober is correct, identifying non-human design is nearly impossible, because the task requires more knowledge of the designer than we can ever have. And his analysis applies not only to ID, but to a major component of the argument for evolution.

As someone who is frankly sympathetic to ID, I am at a loss as to how anyone could respond to Sober's argument. Certainly neither Ayala, Pennock, nor Dembski attempted to do so in this volume. It would seem to me that both ID theorists and their critics make an implicit assumption that a designer is, in some sense, like us. But this begs the question, on what basis do they make such assumptions? And the answer would be, on the basis of the western Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheistic tradition, which states explicitly that God made man in the image of himself. This understanding of God so permeates our culture that even those, like Richard Dawkins, who loudly proclaim their atheism, seem bound by it. The central disagreement then between ID theorists and their most responsible critics, involves how God is like us, and how He is not. And indeed, rereading this volume from that perspective, one quickly realizes that the many, if not most, of the arguments made by the group supposedly opposing the intrusion of religion into science are theological in nature. So perhaps Sober's greatest contribution to this volume, besides his express purpose of cautioning those who would use design arguments indiscriminantly, is in highlighting just how many of the supposedly scientific arguments of our day are permeated by religious thought. This thoughtful essay alone is worth the price of the volume.

This book has to be the best contemporary reference for the ever lasting debate on the philosophical and scientific controversy of creation-evolution. All interested sides in the debate share their point of views in a gentlemen's dispute where the respective claims are well and elegantly explained. Better yet, it could be seen as today's gathering of the best devoted minds to the subject around the best possible answers about our origins, from a not-necessarily religious perspective, but also from a critical view of the scientific establishment. It is well dosed, profound and, why not, intelligent.
I'd just say that I miss David Berlinski there. Nevertheless, men like Behe, Ruse, Depew, Davies, Kaufmann, etc. are more than worth it.

"Debating Design" presents a series of essays by proponents of four different approaches to the origin of biological complexity: Darwinism, Self-Organization, Theistic Evolution, and ID.

This review focuses primarily on the three sections dealing with Darwinism and ID.

The two essays in the Introduction provide some historical context. Ruse provides a useful history of the argument from design and the impact that Darwin's theory had on it, and Menuge reviews the modern ID movement.

Interestingly, Menuge takes great pains to distinguish ID from creationism and to attack Barbara Forrest, co-author of "Creationism's Trojan Horse." I agree with Menuge's choice of targets -- both are very important -- but he was completely unsuccessful, IMO, on both points. Forrest went on to be one of the key witnesses in the Kitzmiller trial, and it was probably her testimony that persuaded Judge Jones to rule that ID was essentially nothing more than creationism in disguise.

(Forrest's devastating testimony was in large part just a summary of her book. Read it for yourself to see why Menuge was so anxious to discredit it.)

In the Darwinist section, Sober's essay is probably too technical for laymen to follow, but the essays by Ayala, Miller, and Pennock are good representatives -- clearly written and jargon-free -- of the standard refutations of some of the ID-iots' major arguments. (Miller and Pennock were witnesses in the Kitzmiller trial too.) It would have been nice if these authors could have spent more time on arguments for evolution, as opposed to arguments against ID. Oh well. Maybe in another book.

Interestingly, all of the presumably pro-ID essays -- by Dembski, Bradley, Behe, and Meyer -- were devoted almost exclusively to criticizing evolution. None of them spent hardly any time at all actually advocating ID. The end result is that most of the comments specifically about ID came from its opponents, not from its supporters. Not only did the ID-iots spend very little time making positive arguments for ID, but the positive arguments they did make were generally nothing more than feeble analogies. There was essentially no attempt at all to use ID as the basis for generating meaningful hypotheses about the natural world. The ID-iots' complete silence on that issue speaks loud and clear of course. ID is worthless in science, precisely because it is useless in generating meaningful hypotheses.

It's worth mentioning here that Michael Roberts' essay in the TE section also criticized ID for its failure to make any testable predictions about the fossil record.

For what it's worth, Behe, Dembski, and Meyer were all scheduled to be witnesses in the Kitzmiller trial too, but Dembski and Meyer chickened out at the last minute. Behe was the only one of them who actually showed up, and he ended up making a fool of himself on the witness stand. Apparently, Behe's arguments don't seem quite so persuasive when he's required to answer probing questions, under oath, during cross-examination.

As with any anthology, the book is a bit disjointed, so issues emphasized by one author are not always addressed -- or even mentioned -- by other authors. On the other hand, it does include a very wide range of views, with each side having its strongest advocates make their strongest arguments in their own words. Very worthwhile.

This Cambridge University Press volume, co-edited by leading design theorist William Dembski and leading Darwinist philosopher of science Michael Ruse, provides perspectives from scholars on many sides of the ID-debate. The book provides a perfect template for those who would be interested in a comprehensive approach to biological origins in schools: it contains essays by proponents of Darwinism, self-organization, and intelligent design.

The volume begins with points of agreement between Darwinist philosopher of science Michael Ruse and leading intelligent design theorist William Dembski. They agree that intelligent design faces intolerance from the powers that be in the scientific community

Essays by design critics then go on to argue, for example, that the bacterial flagellum can be explained in naturalistic terms. Ken Miller argues that the Type Three Secretory System could have been a precursor to the flagellum. Leading self-organization proponent Stuart Kaufman critiques neo-Darwinism and describes his alternative approach for the origin of biological complexity. Finally, design proponents have their say, rebutting the various charges against intelligent design and pointing to positive evidence for design in certain features of the natural world.

This volume is, to date, the most comprehensive and balanced collection of essays debating design.

This is a very useful collection of essays on the design debate, with a good mix of viewpoints. But, unfortunately, a strange thing has happened, Darwinists and Intelligent Design proponents have learned to coexist and remain deaf, caught up in their separate agendas. Part of the reason, no doubt, is that the field of debate has been monopolized by the two parties that have social clout, with little chance of really breaking the deadlock with fresh ideas. It is not hard to clarify the issue of evolution, but the people with the means to do this don't have ad budgets. So we are stuck with the dreary Darwin boilerplate and now the legerdemain of the ID faction. The Darwinists are frozen, and the ID people, after a burst of useful criticisms of Darwinism, have also become fronzen.
One part of the problem is that ID folk have gone a bridge too far. As a critique of natural selection, Darwin doubt is one thing. But to go over the threshold to a new and complex metaphysics in disguise via the rehashed hopes for the argument by design simply drives the dialectic in reverse gear. That gives Darwinists their excuse to not listen to criticisms of their position. It is getting very tiresome to hear still the useless claims that Darwin's theory resolves issues of complexity, teleology, and the rest. Will they never learn?

We need a third new perspective, not connected with theology in the background, and capable of both using the insights of the new complexity sciences, without their hype, to produce a self-critique of natural selection. Once that's accomplished, then perhaps a new methodology can be devised. The essays of Davies and Kaufmann show hints in that direction, but are still stuck in the wrong science mindset.
A ways to go here. The Darwin defenders are notably without insight into the weaknesses of their position, and the fixation on Darwin's theory goes on and on.

Collects essays by well-known figures in philosophy and theology who are concerned with the question of divine design in the world. Most contributors want to affirm that a God somehow has designed the world. Many do so by trying to argue that Darwinian evolution is incomplete and that there is a way to insert God into the picture given by modern science. Some espouse a kind of mysticism about self-organization and the physics of complexity. Finally, there are the quasi-creationist Intelligent Design (ID) proponents.

This is a useful volume to get an idea of the range of design intuitions in play among theologians and theology-minded scientists today. It also highlights how "ID-lite" ideas are common among more liberal believers who would not be caught dead explicitly opposing Darwinian evolution. From a scientific point of view, most of the essays included are mistaken, wrong-headed, or plain irrelevant, but philosophers and those interested in science and religion issues may find them interesting.

Another long review: Select see all my reviews link above to see the full text of my review.

While the title suggests that there would be a balance in arguments the anti-Darwinian arguments totally lose out against an overwhelming team of experts. Ruse, Ayala, Sober, Pennock and Miller methodically address the flaws in the scientific and philosophical arguments presented by the ID proponents. The ID proponents such as Dembski, Behe and Meyer mostly seem to be repeating old arguments while ignoring the main criticisms against their ideas.

John Haught's "Darwin, Design and Divine Providence", explains the main reason why Intelligent Design proponents so strongly oppose Darwinism and why they are wrong. Surprisingly it is based on the same argument that some evolutionists use to 'disprove' religion. Namely the idea that "Darwinism renders the notion of a divine Providence implausible". This is an interesting observation which may help explain the strong anti-Darwinism found in ID proponents. While many admit that God (oops, the designer) could have used Darwinian evolution, most seem to reject this based on theological grounds. In other words, rather than being a scientific movement, ID is far more a theological movement. This helps one to understand why ID was quickly to abandon the efforts of teaching of intelligent design in favor of the teachings of 'the controversy'. While little real controversy exists, this allows for a 'wedge' for ID to get its message across. Haught's contribution offers a refreshening insight into why Darwinism can be theologically acceptable. In "God after Darwin" Haught observed that "A God whose very essence is to be the world's open future is not a planner or a designer but an infinitely liberating source of new possibilities and new life. It seems to me that neo-Darwinian biology can live and thrive quite comfortably within the horizon of such a vision of ultimate reality."
Haught shows convincingly how Darwinian evolution does not inevitably entail a materialistic philosophy and that the theological notion of Providence is different from the idea of Intelligent Design. Haught thus argues that evolution and divine Providence are compatible. In fact the ultimate love (God's Providence) can only be found in the contingency of life, free of ant predestination or rigidities. Haught's chapter is a must read for scientists and Christians.

Ayala's argument in "Design without Designer: Darwin's Greatest Discovery" is very similar to Ruse's namely that teleology in nature is the expected outcome of the processes of evolution which include natural selection. Thus the appearance of teleology by itself is not sufficient to infer intelligent design. In other words, even if we can infer design, we cannot exclude "natural selection" as its designer. One of the earliest people to point out this limitation in Dembski's argument was Wesley Elsberry.

In "DNA by Design? Stephen Meyer and the Return of the God Hypothesis " Pennock addresses many of the claims by Meyer and shows why they are without much merrit. Pennock points out the 'cut and paste' approach of Meyer in which old arguments, even after been shown to be erroneous, end up in later publications (especially in publications that are not peer reviewed such as newspapers). Pennock not only shows that the anti-Darwinian implications of the Cambrian explosion are mostly "blown out of proportion" (pardon the pun), but also that ID proponents fail to present much of a scientific argument in favor of their own claims. Questions which remain unanswered inclide "what about phyla which arose after the Cambrian? Where they also 'designed'?", "what about the species that arose since the explosion such as us humans?"

Elliot Sober in "The Design Argument" shows what is wrong with the philosophical and logical foundations of the "intelligent design" argument as proposed by Dembski. By showing that there is no probabilistic equivalent to the "modus tollens" argument, Sober shows how the fundation of the design argument is fundamentally and irrepairably flawed. Modus tollens is the argument that "if P then Q", followed by the observation that "Q" is false, hence P is false. But when dealing with probabilistic arguments, such as found in the intelligent design approach, modus tollens does not hold anymore. In other words, if a hypothesis states that an observation is very unlikely, it does not mean that the hypothesis is unlikely. Probabilistic arguments to show "intelligent design" are quite common and all suffer from the above flaw. Because of this "Intelligent Design" has to show that the probability of a particular observation or event "E" is more probable given the intelligent design hypothesis than a naturalistic hypothesis. But this means that "intelligent design" has to be formulated in a positive rather than its usual negative (eliminative) form. Intelligent Design inferences are typically stated as not(chance and/or regularity) thus intelligent design. This argument, also known as "argument from ignorance" forms a poor logical and scientific foundation for science. Hence we have to reject the "intelligent design" claims based on such an approach. That the "intelligent design" approach is indeed unsuitable for scientific inquiry can be observed in a total absence of "intelligent design" hypotheses relevant to science. As Del Ratzsch has stated (I paraphrase), in order for intelligent design to be relevant it has to show that it can give better 'non ad hoc' explanations of the observations. An "intelligent designer" did it fails that requirement.

Kenneth Miller in the chapter "The Flagellum Unspun: The Collapse of "Irreducible Complexity", shows in intricate detail how the homology between type III secretory apparatus and the bacterial flagellum gives us a fascinating insight into the likely evolutionary pathways where the two share a common ancestor. In "Why intelligent design fails Young and Edis (ed)", Ian Musgrave shows in even more detail how science is unraveling much of the mystery behind the bacterial flagellum, leaving little room for an intelligent designer to hide. Miller also addresses the 'probability calculations' by Dembski in his book "No Free Lunch" to show how Dembski's model has little similarity to reality.

Dembski in "The Logical Underpinnings of Intelligent Design" continues to argue his fallacious claim that his explanatory filter has no 'false positives' despite the fact that such false positives are unavoidable. Failing to address the criticisms by his opponents and even fellow ID proponents such as Del Ratzsch, Dembski still argues the logically impossible namely that his filter does not suffer from false positives. In fact Dembski more recently has accepted false positives as an inevitable risk of doing science but he also maintains that false positives would render the explanatory filter useless. Seems to me that the only logical conclusion thus is that the explanatory filter (which is used to infer intelligent design) is useless. A conclusion already reached by intelligent design proponents such as Del Ratzsch who stated

"So typically, patterns that are likely candidates for design are first identified as such by some unspecified ("mysterious") means, then with the pattern in hand S picks out side information identified (by unspecified means) as releavant to the particular pattern, then sees whether the pattern in question is among the various patterns that could have been constructed from that side information. What this means, of course, is that Dembski's design inference will not be particularly useful either in initial recognition or identification of design."

From page 159 of Del Ratzsch's "Nature design and science: The Status of Design in Natural Science", Suny Series in Philosophy and Biology, State University of New York Press (April 1, 2001) which is an excellent book by an intelligent design proponent who often takes an unpopular stance within the ID movement.

Behe, in "Irreducible Complexity: Obstacle to Darwinian Evolution ", focuses on the concept of irreduble complexity as a reliable indicator of intelligent design but irreducible complexity has been shown to be able to arise under fully natural processes thus it is not a very reliable indicator of design. In fact the argument from IC (irreducible complexity) mostly centers around our ignorance of the actual details. While the bacterial flagellum may have appeared to be IC, more and more research provides us with fascinating insights as to how it may have evolved (Musgrave, Matzke). See also Kenneth Miller in this volume.

Finally, Meyer, in "The Cambrian Information Explosion: Evidence for Intelligent Design" raises the old canard (can we say Icon of Intelligent Design) of the Cambrian explosion much of the arguments seem to be contrary to (again) recent scientific findings making the Cambrian explosion as an argument for design one based on our ignorance more than on a positive contribution to our scientific understanding. Contrary to what ID proponents seem to suggest, the Cambrian explosion was not the origin of complex life although it was a period of rapid divergence. Multicellular life can be traced back to the pre-cambrian and bacteria to more than 3.5 billion years ago. Beautiful transitional fossil evidence and evidence of phyla level evolution can be found. The Cambrian explosion is hardly the enigma Meyer seems to want it to be. In other words, the Cambrian explosion, as described by Meyer mostly is a strawman argument, or in simpler terms an argument at odds with both the evidence and the scientific understanding of this event. But even ignoring these shortcomings, Meyer does not present any scientific evidence why the Cambrian explosion should be seen as 'evidence of intelligent design'. Kenneth Miller raised a good question: If all these organisms were designed by an intelligent design during the Cambrian why did most of them go extinct?

As indicated (p.388) by the last of the authors, Stephen C. Meyer, Darwin's natural selection, in its central distinction, lacks purposiveness or goal-directedness in organisms. To argue for or against that presence of goals, the authors as customary look into minutest and latest biological findings.

It has been my attempt in these reviews to bring to attention that the questions at issue can be answered on simpler grounds, on the basis of broader and more general and fundamental experience. I have in my own book gone into this and other explorations of possible knowledge--their subjects suggested in my other reviews here--and presently wish to briefly repeat the simple reasoning recognizing goals in organisms, without now dealing with the related question of a supreme being.

What the participants in present-day debates have overlooked--because of their concentration on the organisms' functional structure in similarity to man-made artifacts--is the significance of the live organism's behavior. Everyone is conscious of the organism's predominant aim toward self-preservation, but attention is paid to it only inadvertently, in the course of other arguments.

In the book reviewed, author Michael J. Behe discusses (p.360) the blood-clotting cascade, and relies in his argument for end-directedness exclusively on the complex components involved, forgetting the end-directedness of the clotting itself. Author James Barham notes (p.222): "A broken bone heals; a broken stone doesn't", yet he fails to take pertinent account of the goal-directed event, speaking (p.214) about the "problem...of explaining the...teleology [goal-directedness] inherent in life".

The goal-directed activities characterizing all the living do not require explanation. Explanation of natural events is understood in terms of causation, and the underlying causal laws are not explained but are of basic observations taken as self-sufficient. Likewise, observation of the all-inclusive goal-directedness in live activities can be taken as self-sufficient, with no explanation. But there is the preconception that all must be explainable by aimless causes and hence so must the live activities possessing aims. These activities cannot of course contradictorily be also aimless, and the aimless causes would have to somehow bring about the live activities as a whole. This supposition, however, becomes irrelevant. It remains that goal-directed life exists, whatever its origin, negating the Darwinian contention of aimlessness in all of nature's events.

Today I asked my 10 year old, "If I placed all the delicate parts of a watch in a bowl and just left them there, how many years do you suppose it would take to turn into a watch?" Without any hesitation she replied, "Never, that would be impossible." I said to her, "Would you believe that there are some people out there who think that humans and this complex world we live in, just happened!" How much more complex are we than a watch? It is utterly and completely impossible to think it all happened by chance.

I was also at the Kansas Hearings like some of the other reviewers. I heard one of the gentleman speak who assisted in the editing of the book "Debating Design: From Darwin to DNA". The man was a genius! He clearly defended Intelligent Design using science, not emotions. Read the testimony for yourself.

This book is excellent! Don't wait another day, buy it now!