Customer Reviews

The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence In Biological Systems

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This book's entire foundation is flawed. ID's argument regarding irreducible complexity in biological systems falls flat, time and again, whenever the details of the system are looked into. This book argues that Intelligent Design can be refuted only if scientists can show that irreducibly complex systems can arise spontaneously through "random chance". However, so-called irreducibly complex structures and systems turn out to be nothing of the sort. Scientists have shown, time and time again, how biological systems co-opt genes and proteins for new tasks. This book also takes a very simplistic (and inaccurate) view of how evolution works to sculpt biological systems. Intelligent design has been shown, time and time again, to be nothing more than religious doctrine, creationism wrapped up in a new (not-so) shiny package. It is not science. It does not explain biological phenomena. Thus this book is not about science. And it explains nothing. If you are a proponent of ID then I guess this book will tell you what you want to hear. If you are looking for a truthful, scientific account of biology and evolution, you need to look elsewhere.

Painful to even try to distort reality enough to make sense of this. If its approached as Fiction, it might be entertaining. Other than that, its a bizarre glimpse into a demented mind.

Sometimes I enjoy books that I disagree strongly with. Sometimes I respect books I don't enjoy reading. This book is neither. It was so poorly written it will make you feel the pain of a middle school grammar teacher. It was so poorly argued, that it will make you feel the pain of facilitating a debate between elementary school children. It's base propaganda by dishonest and stupid people.

The Design of Life is just the next stage in the intelligent design creationists agenda to replace scientific knowledge with what they call "Theistic Realism". They commit the same fallacy as older versions of this book (Of Pandas of People), producing little more than superstitious based pseudoscience. Philosopher Barbra Forrest and Biologist Paul Gross has made an extensive study on these creationists, which can be found in the book Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design.

Even devout Christians has expressed considerable criticism of the intelligent design creationism, such as Ken Miller in Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution (P.S.) and Francis Collins in The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

"The Design of Life" perpetuates the same myths as the young earth creationists did in the 70's and 80's, only now it has been dressed up in a cheap tuxedo.

Not only is intelligent design creationism unscientific, it even makes bad theology. 98% of the species that has ever lived on this planet has gone extinct. This means that, if intelligent design creationism is correct, that the designer is a moron. First, he created that species and, whoops, it went extinct. Then he created another, and whoops, it went extinct.

After reading this book and actually bothering to look up the relevant scientific data, I feel betrayed, both on a scientific and theological level. The intelligent design creationists have a specific religious agenda and are trying to push it onto children that should be able to learn the truth, rather than creationism.

If your quest is to reinforce your religious belief - regardless of fact, evidence and scientific truth, this book is for you. However, if you value honesty and real scientific enquiry, don't spend your money on this waste of perfectly good trees.

It's really more of the same desperate disinformation, muddled thinking and dishonesty presented in the Dover County / I.D. court case. Search for "cdesign proponentsists" to get an example.

Well written, but ultimately fallacious. Keeps arguing the same old arguments that have been completely refuted time and again. This time he sprinkles cherry picked scientific findings on top to try and make it seem more legitimate. There is no serious ID/Evolution debate outside of the political sphere, and this book (like most of the ID movement) spends most of its time trying to make it seem like there is. Don't buy this book.

Once again, this is not science. It is little more than quasi-theological propaganda. Dembski is not only behind the times as to the actual work being done in the biological sciences, he cherry picks what he does use to to create misleading "gaps". The idea of irreducable complexity deliberately misunderstands the development of function. The certainty here is irreducable drivel on Dembski's part.

More nonsense from an institute allegedly devoted to discovery but which has never discovered anything.
Two basic problems with these DI types is that (i) they don't understand evolution and (ii) they superficially see what looks like good design but ignore the examples of bad design.

Haven been given this book, I approached it with a genuinely open mind. However with a basic science education the material feels to be really going out on a limb, ignoring the vast scientific research and evidence that stands in contrast. If anything this book reads as an op-ed and not a science book, or worse religious propaganda masquerading as science. This motivated me to look a bit deeper into the authors Dembski and Wells, and what I found confirmed my suspicions: these guys are big Intelligent Design proponents and Discovery Institute fellows and generally discredited "scientists." The agenda of this institute is to promote creationism in schools and displace the Theory of Evolution and their strategy is to create an air of scientific legitimacy when there isn't any. Now I can honestly say that I think this book is another tool in that dishonest strategy; a one-sided misleading propaganda piece pretending to be scientific, bypassing the normal peer-reviewed scientific channels, feed directly to the ill-informed public. Shame on them for regressing our species.

Once again we have a book chock-full of misrepresentations, omissions, and complete speculation. His refusal to even consider now widely accepted premises such as the nonlinear speed of evolution, the usefulness of intermediary proteins, and his incredibly skewed idea of mutation make this book laughable at best and infuriating at worst. It proves the old adage you can lead a giraffe to water but you can't make him drink.

If you want to know more about evolution do yourself a favor and read this book instead. Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea