By Design: Science and the Search for God [Paperback]

Larry Witham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2004

The triumphal Darwinian Centennial in 1959 seemed once and for all to end the argument between science and religion that had been raging since Thomas Huxley took up the cause of evolution in the Victorian era. As far as science was concerned, God was dead--case closed. But in the past two decades, as prize winning science writer Larry Witham shows in By Design, the case has been reopened. Advances in science suggest that the materialist "laws" may be incapable of comprehending the subtleties of evolution. Independent scientists and those involved with organizations such as the New Discovery Institute are now using the cutting edge tools of physics, biochemistry, genetics, information theory, and neuroscience to reconsider whether "intentional" fine-tuning was required for life to be possible. At the heart of "By Design" are two inter-related movements. One is the "science and religion dialogue," which stretches from the laboratories of Nobelists to inner sancta of the Vatican. This dialogue attempts to build bridges between two worlds formerly thought to be implacably hostile and incompatible. The other is the intelligent design movement, which by reviving a natural theology of design in nature has challenged the Darwinian strongholds in science and public education. Larry Witham introduces some of the most colorful characters in these movements, and summarizes the scientific developments that have made this dramatic new dialogue possible. After reading "By Design" we understand how what was once a battleground between God and science is now becoming a meeting ground.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a follow-up to his recent Where Darwin Meets the Bible, Washington Times reporter Witham surveys the ongoing dialogue between scientists and theologians about the relationship between science and religion. Drawing on interviews with key partners in the conversation, Witham provides a helpful guide to the major issues in this dialogue. While the controversy between creationists and evolutionary biologists has occupied a great deal of the public's attention, Witham points out that scientists and theologians have been dealing with other matters just as weighty and as provocative. He covers topics ranging from the anthropic principle (which argues that the universe's design implies that human life is its intended goal) and genetic engineering to astronomy and intelligent design. In the discussion of intelligent design, for example, Witham talks to one of its major proponents, Michael Behe. Behe is a religious scientist who accepts the workings of evolution as they apply to animals and plants, but who believes that the complexities of human molecular design (the way that blood clots, for instance) can be explained only by the work of an intelligent designer. Through his conversations with a wide-ranging group of scientists and theologians, including John Polkinghorne, Kenneth Miller, Allen Sandage, George Ellis and Paul Davies, Witham adeptly charts the course of the science and religion dialogue as the participants continue to search for common ground.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

The late twentieth century has witnessed the emergence of a surprising coalition of biochemists, physicists, neurobiologists, and information theorists determined to bring science and religion together. Ironically, while orthodox scientific materialists continue to struggle to explain such phenomena as how a fine-tuning of stellar mass and cosmic expansion made possible the appearance of intelligent life, or how a primate brain first acquired human consciousness, the advocates of this new synthesis of reason and faith have found these same conundrums surprisingly tractable. Adumbrated by theorists such as chemist Charles Thaxton, and astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, this new science accommodates much more data simply by acknowledging intelligent design in the architecture of the universe. Witham invites nonspecialists to scrutinize the central tenets of this new-style science and to reflect upon the social effects of a growing dialogue about this science sponsored by such institutions as the Vatican and the Templeton Foundation. A very helpful guide for readers trying to make sense of the science-religion debates breaking out anew on college campuses and in state legislatures. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books (May 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159403043X
• ISBN-13: 978-1594030437
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,594,050 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars God and Science: Together at Last, May 21, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: By Design: Science and the Search for God (Hardcover)

This book is an intriguing look into one of the most significant debates of our time: God and Science. Except that Witham shows it to be not so much an argument as a conversation. He shows how the stranglehold of Darwinism (the last of the three great 19th century intellectual pillars standing after the fall of Freudianism and Marxism) on our intellectual world has begun to weaken as men and women of science have found evidence of "design" not explained by the Darwinian paradigm. This book provides a look at one of the cutting edges of contemporary science which happens to be about the possibility of a Creator. Highly recommended.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What a Marvelous Book!, April 20, 2004

By 

Shannon Richie (Northumberland, PA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: By Design: Science and the Search for God (Hardcover)

This is a fantastic book for anyone looking to begin investigation of the Intelligent Design Movement. Most sections are well-written, and the technical detail is held to a minimum for the beginning reader on the topic. Much of the content from the book comes from interviews with the major players on both sides of the intelligent design-creation/evoltuion divide (although this particular book does not deal much with young earth creationists).

The book's strength is its readibility and its author's creativity in expositing the key elements in the current debate in just a little over 200 pages (no mean feat, there). Not limited to the biological realm, the book also discusses the design debate in the cosmological and physics contexts as well-a real positive.

An excellent item for the semi-sophisticated person who wants to start out with a broad overview on this topic. There is a sufficient source list at the end of the book for those who wish to explore Witham's sources further.

36 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prying Open Closed Minds, May 22, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: By Design: Science and the Search for God (Hardcover)

This overview of the intelligent design movement is guaranteed to drive certain people crazy. Foremost among them will be fans of Richard Dawkins's "The Blind Watchmaker" and other acolytes of the modern religion of Scientism. Not science, mind you, which requires an open, inquisitive approach to data, but Scientism, the slavish devotion to the god Theory. Darwin handed down his discoveries, the earth shook, the sky trembled, don't try to teach anything else in OUR public schools.

The problem, as Witham demonstrates in his work, is that there are a great many questions left unanswered by Darwin, most of them revolving around what Michael Behe calls "irreducible complexity." There is no need to resort to the thought experiment of finding a watch in a field, as Dawkins does in his attempt to prove that random selection is the only force capable of or sufficent to explaining the world around us.

Behe, cited by Witham, makes things much easier: a simple mousetrap, with only five working parts, cannot have come together over billions of years by any natural process known or suspected. Half a mousetrap is useless, as is four-fifths. Only the complete mechanism will function, and the odds of a mousetrap "evolving" are astronomically, vanishingly small.

(Which begs an interesting question: Does Dawkins, and by extension his fans the Priests of Darwin, actually believe that a mechanism as complex as a pocketwatch will appear before their eyes if they sit in a field waiting for sufficient eons?)

Witham approaches this fascinating area of inquiry as an intelligent layman, surveying the experts in the field with an eye to offering the reader as complete an exposition of the intelligent design question as possible.

Highly recommended, but only to those willing to have their eyes, and minds, opened wide.