102 of 147 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Burying the real issues in a pile of chaff, June 7, 2005
This review is from: By Design or By Chance? The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe (Paperback)
The question in the title of the book is an important one well worth a serious philosophical and theological analysis in light of modern science. Unfortunately, the reader will have to look elsewhere for that discussion. Ms. O'Leary's book is a rehash of Intelligent Design (ID) propaganda which promotes shoddy science, shallow theology and incompetent journalistic research.
The basic problematic of the book begins in the preface where Ms. O'Leary states: "I began to see clearly that Darwinism is a theory of evolution that explicitly denies design in biology in order to leave God out to of the picture." Although, in the body of the text, she does make some effort to discriminate between the scientific theory of evolution and a philosophy which she, following the ID lead, calls Darwinism, this is so muted that the average reader must be forgiven if they equate the diatribes against Darwinism as an attack on the science of evolution.
The first example of shoddy science shows up in the introduction where a side-bar defines the Big Bang as an explosion. The next page labels a highly improbable event as "impossible" even though it is part of probability that improbable, even highly improbable events can happen. There is the usual ID/creationist confusion of the theory of evolution with theories about the origin of life leading to inappropriate commentary on the Urey-Miller experiments. There is the usual ID/creationist quote-mining of Gould's defence of Punctuated Equilibrium and misrepresentation of what that thesis entails. And this merely scratches the surface.
A shallow theology also runs right through the book. It begins by equating evolution with chance, chance with nature and nature with athiesm. No supporter of modern evolutionary theory would agree that evolution is a matter of chance. Indeed a side-bar on page 172 quotes "arch-villain" Richard Dawkin' statement from Climbing Mount Improbable to the effect that designoid objects are not accidental but the product of a non-random process.
But the more significant theological error is to assume that a deity cannot or will not use natural, random processes to achieve its goals. There is nothing inherently atheistic about chance processes or natural processes. But the ID and creationist movements have convinced millions of sincere believers that there is. The effect of this theological error is that Christian organizations spend millions on combatting the wrong target: setting their sights on the science of evolution itself, rather than on the philosophies of materialism, naturalism and scientism which mistakenly claim to be the logically necessary conclusions of evolution.
Finally, there is the matter of journalism. Here I can offer some kudoes. Ms. O'Leary does a fine job of recounting the social history of Darwin's theory--of how it came to be associated with materialism, and of the key role played by the evolution=atheism propagandists such as Huxley and Mencken, Dawkins and Sagan. Her analysis of the film Inherit the Wind in comparison to the actual event of the Scopes trial is superb. Her brief history of the rise of creationism is also excellent.
But in contrast to these virtues, her recounting of evolution and science is appallingly bad. For example, the only mention of dinosaur-bird transitional forms is Archeoraptor, the hoax which embarrassed National Geographic. There is not a single mention of the dozens of legitimate finds of feathered dinosaur fossils. In this context, such an omission amounts to the very suppression of evidence which she alleges against supporters of evolutionary theory. She has uncritically accepted a perversion of Gould's punctuated equilibrium thesis when correct information is readily available. Twice she quotes, and once alludes to, Gould's comment on lack of transitional fossils, when a simple reading of the primary literature would indicate that Gould was speaking of transitional fossils at the species level, not transitional fossils in general.
One of the most striking features of the book is that it nowhere deals with the actual science of evolution. The focus is rather on the conflicting philosophies that have gathered around the science. Unfortunately, the implication is that the philosophies establish the truth of the science. This is simply not the case, and, ironically, it is a creationist scientist, Kurt Wise, who points this out. Unfortunately, while Ms. O'Leary is willing to accept that a creationist can still do good science, she does not accept the corollary that "Darwinists" can also do good science, in spite of their belief system.
There are many important matters that do need to be discussed in scientific, philosophical and theological circles around design and chance. Now and again Ms. O'Leary touches on them. But the serious weaknesses of this book preclude it as a significant contributor to this important discussion.
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22 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Quagmire of Viewpoints, January 12, 2006
This review is from: By Design or By Chance? The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe (Paperback)
I received this as a gift due to my interest in intelligent design as a response to the theoretical shortcomings of Darwinism. But I'm not looking at ID to confirm religious or philosophical beliefs. Unfortunately, the author spends most of her time dealing with those issues.
She does touch on whether ID is science and the evidentiary and theoretical problems with natural selection as the be-all and end-all explanation of life. But those subjects are not treated in any kind of depth. I was disappointed she didn't explore the mathematical models making it highly improbable that natural selection (chance) can explain the complexity of many life forms, particularly at the molecular level.
I'm a layman but I'm inclined to believe that ID does have scientific implications and that the scientific establishment is overly defensive. It will not do to dismiss all ID proponents as closet creationists.
Bottom line: I didn't come out of it more confident of my grasp of of the subject matter than I did going in.
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44 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A different kind of book about creation evolution, December 3, 2004
This review is from: By Design or By Chance? The Growing Controversy on the Origins of Life in the Universe (Paperback)
I estimate that about 3 to 4 books about the creation-evolution controversy are published each week. Many are by non-scientists in favor of creationism of some type, and most repeat the same information. Many are not worth reading. This is a very different book on this topic.This book does not argue for one side, as most books on this topic do, but objectively discusses all sides of the controversy. For this reason all sides of the controversy, from young earth to old earth creationists, to theistic evolutionists to Intelligent Design theorists, to atheist evolutionists, will find this book very useful. It is written by an award winning journalist and has much new material of interest to all sides of this never ending controversy. In many ways it is an update of Ron Numbers classic book titled The Creationists. Numbers focused on the history from 1920 to about 1980 and this book covers 1980 to date, although some background before 1980 is covered. It covers the science issues but much of the focus is on the history and non science area. As such, it stands alone in the field and has no competition. If you want a book that covers the whole controversy, this book is for you. If you want a book that defends one side or the other side I would look elsewhere.
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