Customer Reviews

The God Hypothesis: Discovering Design in Our Just Right Goldilocks Universe

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At about the same time I received this book, I read a similarly titled book whose thesis is the exact counter-argument to Corey's; that volume being "God: the Failed Hypothesis," by Victor Stenger. Both books are --intensely-- flawed. Stenger presents an easily rebutted collection of arguments that he claims to be 'science' putting God to the gallows once and for all. By his own modest admission, Stenger's interpretations of certain physical theories depart substantially from the understandings of most physicists, and many of Stenger's offbeat "interpretations" are simply silly. Unfortunately, the present volume, "The God Hypothesis," by Michael Corey, is argued almost as badly.

Corey does present enough 'expert testimony' to make the case that "our 'just right' goldilocks universe" is outrageously unlikely, impossible by any reasonable standard, unless it has been intended by a Super-intellect having some conceptual 'likeness' to Anaxagoras' 'primordial Mind' and Aristotle's 'First Mover'. Support is cited from the recent work of many well-known physicists: Gribbin, Davies, Hawking, Penrose, Rees, Barrow, Gingerich, Dyson, Jastrow, Smoot, and many more, as well as many biologists. If Corey had been a great deal more cautious in his interpretations and comments regarding the citations he makes, the book could have been both shorter and more powerfully argued. But when Corey throws his own 'scientific' understandings into the mix, he often succeeds only in muddling the topic at hand. Corey's defective spin on physical theory will have informed readers (perhaps especially those who might otherwise be inclined to agree with his thesis) gritting their teeth and wincing. Some examples of Corey's poor understanding of physics:

1) He says that the "flatness" of the universe refers to the fact that it can be accurately described with Euclidean geometry, that space-time is fortuitously not curved, and that life can only exist in a universe consistent with Euclidean geometry. Ouch! There is just no salvaging this kind of tangential blunder.

2) He says that most stars are like ours because they are "main sequence" stars. This seems to demonstrate a poor understanding. The main sequence is the long, 'star-like' phase typical of several classes of stars. Our star (the sun) is actually UNLIKE the vast majority of stars; as a Class G star, only about 8% of other stars are 'similar'. By far most stars are Class M and are decidedly different from our sun (they cannot have systems that host life as we know it).

3) He calls 10 to the negative 39th power a "huge number." Perhaps he means "huge" as in its largeness of extreme smallness??

At any rate, Corey too frequently 'shoots himself in the foot' with erroneous 'scientific' commentary. His book could have been much better if he could have stayed out of his own way. The book's slightly redeeming value is that the scientifically uniformed reader will not notice the author's interpretational gaffes (which are generally tangential and superfluous to his central thesis). The book is also a pretty good bibliographical source for more serious study. In short, the book's potential merits are conspicuously sullied by its author's careless commentary.

The subject of Corey's book is a controversial one: the anthropic principle, or whether the beautiful complexity of our universe is evidence of its creator. While not everyone will come away convinced that this "just right" world indicates the presence of God, Corey musters some fascinating ideas from contemporary science that may just open even the tightest-closed mind.

There are many books on the market advocating intelligent design, and it seems that Mr. Corey has read most of them. He quotes liberally from them, as well as many recent popular science books. However, there is little original thought in his book. He does not present any new ideas, but merely rewords already established ones to create his story about the "Goldilocks Universe".

One could argue then that his book is a review of one particular view on intelligent design. However, since his arguments are mainly drawn from popular science works, and not so much from serious publications, they fail to impress the discerning reader.

To back up his theory, he names many scientists from the past several hundred years who believed in a "personal creator". While this is fine, it does not serve as a valid argument today. A lot of very smart people used to believe that the earth is flat; this fact does not make those people any less smart, and does not make the earth any flatter.

He argues that because many of the fundamental constants of the universe have to be precisely a certain value for the universe to be stable enough to support life, then it must be intelligently designed. But there could have been countless Big Bangs that we don't know about that did not have these parameters just right, and the fact that we live in one that does, does not demonstrate anything but the fact that we exist. If we did not exist, we would not be here arguing about it. This is a lot like being amazed that one's legs are precisely long enough to reach down to the ground.

Although he continues to present different material throughout the book, the ideas he presents repeat themselves endlessly, and by the middle of the book one becomes bored with the repetition. Also, from the beginning of the book, he makes the assumption that a "personal creator" exists. He does not gradually build a case for his theory and then present the conclusion. This results in a book where one is presented with "astounding" observations that miraculously support the already foregone conclusion, leading to the assertion that God is Great.

Mr. Corey is preaching a sermon to the choir, and anyone who is a member of the choir will likely think the book is marvelous, while someone who is not is likely to be left wanting.

Richard Dawkins wrote, "and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist."

This book strongly challenges such views. If it has been possible for most of the last century to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist on grounds of biology, then the discoveries in physics of the extreme precision of physical constants makes it much harder to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist in this one. The fact of a moment of creation, at big bang, at which space and time came into existence, and that the physical forces were immediately fine tuned to produce a universe capable of giving rise to life, is so remarkable and improbable that it demands an explanation.

Michael Corey writes this book well showing how evidence from many different areas of science is converging and leading to a view that the universe is so finely tuned that it is as Fred Hoyle put it, "a put up job." Corey references well, and distinguishes fact and measurements from interpretation. He disagrees with many materialist viewpoints but he does so respectfully, and explains where he thinks they go wrong. This book is in part a source book of examples of design in nature. Dawkins uses "the argument from personal incredulity" gambit when people see evidence of design. Dawkins claims that what appears to be designed is merely the appearance of design. Corey turns this round and shows that evidence of design is overwhelming, and that the basis for incredulity is that the numbers against chance processes bringing about our present universe fully justify our incredulity.

If Corey is right then the argument from design will gain great strength in coming years, and the search for a purely material explanation of our origins is doomed to fail. There is much in the universe that smacks of design. As Paul Davies (no relation to me)describes in "The Goldilocks Enigma" there is too much that is "just right" about our universe for it simply to be "just so." I'm not sure the multiverse theory gets us much further to an explanation- it's speculative, and an argument from design is actually simpler than multiple universes. Paul Davies describes the pros and cons of the multiverse idea well in the "Goldlilocks Enigma"

I recommend this book to readers. It sets out well the grounds for believing in Design, and an intelligent designer working to create and sustain our universe.

It will infuriate nontheistic materialists, such as Dawkins and Dennett, but the challenge to their views is growing in number, strength, and coherence at present. If the God Delusion was an attempt to convert believers to atheism, then this book is a challenge the other way- to attempt to show materialists the evidence of design in the universe.

In Christian terms the God revealed in this book would be more a Deistic God (he started the processes rolling and then withdrew)than a traditional Theistic God.

This book is a useful contribution to the debate and I recommend it to readers on both sides of the debate.

Every single one of Corey's points is debunked in Dawkins' book.

Of course, if you find the placebo effect of believing in a Supreme Being provides you comfort, and truth is relatively unimportant, avoid Dawkins' book and believe what you want to believe.

If you like Denton, you'll love Michael Corey. This is the most fascinating, and compelling book I have come across on the topic of design. My local library had a hard time getting it back from me. Corey is level headed, unbiased, and lets the evidence speak for itself. I can't praise this work enough. Treat you mind to this wonderful book.

Why 5 Stars? From all the books that I've read on Intelligent Design, this is by far the most complete & satisfying. Reading through the book one must appreciate the thorough research done by Mr Corey, based on which he forms a convincing case for 'The God Hypothesis'.

Using the latest empirical data Corey shows how our universe was 'fine-tuned' at the big-bang without which life would have been impossible, simultaneously shows why counter theories against multiple universes and big-bangs are not plausible. Here are a few specific points on why I recommend this book:

- It's easy to read. As a business student I thought I would be struggling through the book, but that was not the case. Corey has a gift of expressing his thoughts in a clear style. I found the book to be readable and throught-provoking.

- Often books on this subject only deal with the evidence that point to a God, talking little or nothing about the kind of God the evidence shows. But Corey has taken the extra step to discuss the various attributes of God that can be inferred from the available evidence.

- His arguments are not camouflaged in paragraphs for the reader to look out for, but he presents it logically in syllogistic style with no loose ends.

- He gives wonderful insights from a wide variety of people coming from different backgrounds. From scientists like Hawking & Hoyle to philosophers like Kant & Hick.

- Corey presents several counter-arguments against those who have objections to an Intelligent designer. He deals with Richard Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker to Lee Smolin's Baby universes and many others. The author very clearly shows that the Blind Watchmaker, using mindless chance & natural selection alone, cannot explain the design & specified complexity in the universe because it ultimately begs the question since Natural Selection itself contains properties that such as self-replicating that are highly complex & therefore cannot just be assumed for the pupose of removing the role of an Intelligent Designer.

- Some of the other questions that skeptics ask are answered by Corey:
a) If God created this universe for mankind, why didn't he create it in an instantaneous fiat, instead of billions of years of evolution?
b) Why is the fine-tuning not a another God of the Gaps problem?
c) Why is it not reasonable to attribute the fine-tuning to an accident or coincidence?
d) Why does God choose to present himself indirectly through natural causes?

I highly recommend this book to those have doubts in their mind about the relationship between God & Science but don't know where to start or those who would like a fresh insight into the latest scientific evidence that point to a Creator. This book is also great for the believers who wish to learn how to present the argument for God in a scientific fashion.

In the library of Intelligent Design Books, "The God Hypothesis" will remain a star for times to come.

Without a single doubt this is the most important and illuminating book ever written on the topic of FINE-TUNING AND THEODICY (i.e., natural evil). As a present researcher and apologist I used to struggle and spiritually despair daily with the meaningless suffering withing the world. After 10 years of sifting through the various books regarding the presence of evil in a God created world, I suddenly, and as if my providence happened across Michael Corey's marvelous books THE GOD HYPOTHESIS (AND ALSO COREY'S BOOK EVOLUTON AND THE PROBLEM OF NATURAL EVIL). While other authors gave nothing but pats and Bible quotes, Dr. Corey took it to an entirely new level of spiritual comprehension, and turnen on a light of spritual wisdom and understanding which explained all via God's overarching divine plan! I never thought there would be a defense of natural evil. I believed in my heart of hearts (as most) that as a believer, it was just something I would have to live with and try to put it out of my mind. (even though it was severely taxing on my faith). But is is exactly at this juncture of spiritual reflection that Dr. Corey's book provides such a release from the bondage of not knowing 'WHY?' Dr. Corey shows that within the very heart of evil there shines the larger light of overall purpose. A beacon which when properly viewed in the light of theological reason becomes perhapse the strongest of arguments for God, as it reveals the very purpose of Creation itself. Corey, with the wisdom of a modern day Apostle Pauls, shows that what we in our limited understanding percieve as evil events(e.g., Christ's crucifixion)are through the divine lens of God's ends, precursors towards a grander truth, a stepping stone to the Kingdom spiritual growth within. I can now embrace all that life throws at me because I now know that it is all part of the divine plan of spiritual growth and the maturation of individual personhood. So if you lack a grasp of why God created the world as such. Despair no more Dr. Corey in what seems to be a revelatory understanding of the divine purpose sheds light on the darkest of the worlds evils and brings hope to a world that desperately needs something to cling on to adrift in the raging sea's reality's turmoil. I can say that in many ways this book significantly altered my entire worldview. And it helped me through a devastating personal time in my life when I lost a close relative to cancer. I for the first time have a sense of divine peace knowing that God is REALLY at the helm of all that occurs. At that in the end all will become clear. Though we see through a glass darkly, Corey writing brings us face to face with the secrets and panaramic scope of those purposes that both God and life are meant to teach us. Thank You Dr.Corey, You are truly an inspired writer. The breath of God is truly upon your pen.

This is an awful book. The arguments he puts forth make it seem as if he has never read any literature on the same subjects. His "arguments" have been debunked by Richard Dawkins and many others. This is not a book for an intellectual. This is a book for the "common man," whose academic interest is only predicated on his desire to defend his irrational and preposterous believes. And, as the saying goes, "God must have hated the common man, because he made them all so common."