Customer Reviews

How Blind Is the Watchmaker?: Nature's Design & the Limits of Naturalistic Science

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There are some good things in this book: the appendix, in which the author retells the story of science through the lives of Bacon, Descartes, Brahe, Pascal, Kepler, Galileo, and the rest; the illustrations, including the authors own photos and cartoons (the fossilized Spitfire was pretty funny); and even an occasion telling argument. But unfortunately, specific, detailed evidence to back up the main points is one of the things the book is short on. Broom contradicts the first principle of expository writing: show it, don't just say it. He repeatedly asserts that natural selection doesn't make sense in a materialistic world, that early life experiments are unrealistic, and so on, but gives few specifics. He blathers on with philosophy and repetition of his main points when he should be backing them up with hard scientific facts, figures, and specific evidence. His overall argument may be right, (though I'm not quite sure I know what it is, exactly) and certainly some of his points make sense to me, but they are poorly developed.

I wish you well, Dr. Broom. But you'll need more than cartoons and bald assertion if you want to overthrow a theory of origins as widely accepted as Darwinism.

author, Jesus and the Religions of Man

"How Blind is the Watchmaker?" is an attempt to show the intricate complexity of design in nature, and expose the weaknesses of the naturalistic Neo-Darwinian paradigm. Unfortunately, the arguments vary in their consistency and ability to convince. I agree with the editorial review that the strongest portion of the book is in the sections overviewing the investigation of the origin of life, and that in other places Broom is prone to caricature the beliefs of Darwinists. There is a lot of interesting information presented in the book, and Broom does a good job of explaining the complexity of life, however, his arguments tend to have some holes in them. I did expect more of a response to Richard Dawkin's book "The Blind Watchmaker," but he did do a good, brief job of deconstructing several of Dawkin's analogies and simulations of evolution. There are better reads available on the same topics of intelligent design and evolution, that are better thought-out and more convincing. To name a few: "Darwin's God: Evolution and the Problem of Evil," "Wedge of Truth," and for a rigorous analysis of origins of life research, "The Mystery of Life's Origin." If you do decide to read "How Blind is the Watchmaker?", you can glean some good information, while stepping around the weaker argumentation.

I write as one who believes in intentional divine action beyond scientific discernment, thus I find much in Broom's book for which to be positive, but also some concerns. I strongly endorse the amount of research effort and scientific insight that exudes from the pages of this book. Broom's frequent references to the late little-known Christian philosopher Michael Polanyi certainly elevate his contributions to thought in science. Particularly strong are the chapters on dealing with the limits of scientific knowledge. "Science may be tempted to conclude that, because it cannot by its own methods see any `big picture,' there is no big picture to be found. When this happens, it is guilty of straying from its legitimate mission."

Also particularly helpful is the detail of explanatory demonstrations of scientific phenomena, such as the operation of DNA/RNA within the cell and biological `machines', chaos theory and self-organizing complexity, and the operation of photosynthesis, all well illustrated.

Where I feel Broom strays from a position of strength is in the main hypothesis that he advances, that biological life exhibits a `prolife principle', also referred to as a drive to achieve or survive. Broom unapologetically refers to this as vitalism, a property inherent in life that gives it a teleological framework. Although his observation is correct, it is very easy to argue that there is a survival advantage to this behavior, and it should come as no surprise to anyone with even a limited understanding of evolutionary development that this instinct is more likely to be conferred in the life that survives.

Although this book brings a fresh perspective from the usual Intelligent Design staple, it falls short of a truly satisfying understanding of the relationship between science and faith. The true strength of this book is simply identifying materialism as a false god based on an over-reaching science.

This book's arguments are completely dishonest and misleading. Dembski is playing up to the ignorant gullibility of creationists. He bases his writing on a complete lack of understanding of the theory of evolution that is horribly tainted by blatantly unjustifiable faith in mythical creation. Evolution is upheld by EVIDENCE, which is something creationism does not have. As with ALL scientific theories there can be disagreements and discussion and changes as evidence, technology and science themselves evolve. Even if some grand discovery somehow proved evolution to be incorrect it does not mean that creationism would become true by default.
Creationism is not based on any kind of science. It is the distortion of truth to make it fit within the bounds of biblical myth. Life does not evolve with a goal in mind as Demski would have us believe. There is no end product or a aim toward perfection. Evolution does not even guarantee that a later form will be "better" than a previous form. It makes changes for the current environment. Environments like everything in the universe changes, evolves. Even christianity and its views of god, jesus, right and wrong evolve. Why do you suggest that is? Does god change his mind? That would be ridiculous. It is more probable that a god like the one described in the bible with such enormous contradictions does not exist.
It is very unfortunate that christians who claim to uphold the truth are so willing to ignore facts and fabricate their own form of "science" in order to propogate lies. The bible is NOT a science book. It is not even a history book. It is a book of myths. Man made fairy tales. The supporters of creationism wish to return us to the Dark Ages where all facts are derived from the bible and all who disagree are tortured and burned to death by the church. It is very sad that more christians do not see that they are decieved, partly by themselves for allowing it but more by christian leaders. Christian leaders generate fear by suggesting that doubt in the bible translates into a fatal lack of faith that will be paid for by being sent to hell for eternity by their everloving creator. So much for unconditional love.

This book is unconvincing and childish. It's amazing to me that Broom believes himself to be a scientist. This book is a flailing attempt to discredit a theory that the author doesn't appear even to understand. It will convince only those who already deny evolution, and even many of them may be turned off by the weak arguments contained herein. Dumb.

I feel sad for those people who actually think this book contains factual information. Behe and Dempski, both ID advocates were thoroughly trounced years ago.

If anyone is thinking about reading this book-please don't, you'll only be wasting your time and money on pseudoscientific garbage. I mean, you wouldn't read a book about a flat earth-would you?

If you doubt this post, do yourself a favor and see how many scientifically peer-reviewed journals there are out there that endorse Intelligent Design.

You'll realize there aren't any and you'll have to come to one of two conclusions:

A. That's because ID is firmly in the realm of pseudoscience and belongs there with it's cohorts (Holocaust denial, geocentricism, aliens abducting people, fairies, etc).

B. There's a massive, impossible, conspiracy out there to supress these journals.

If you subscribe to option B., you'll probably also think that mankind never visited the moon, that JFK was killed by sasquatch, and God knows what else.

It is good to see new authors in the Intelligent Design movement. Dr. Broom has written a very useful book that is worth serious consideration. I found it most useful in it's critique of Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker (hence the title). Dr. Broom is particularly good at deconstructing Dawkin's appealing but fallacious analogies and examples of naturalistic evolution. I hope to see more from this author in the future.

To Fairfax.
1. I doubt you read the book.
2. Instead of fundamentally denying all merit why not provide simple examples that refute the claims, so idiots like me can understand why evolution seems to be so adept at selecting and expanding on "good" mutations, while intuitively we would expect to see mostly "bad" mutations.

Working in the computer world, which I would guess is far different from the natural world, the Dembski arguments about information theory and information improvement vs. atrophy make sense. Show me mathmatically why he is wrong or at least point me in the direction.

I love your argument about "It's all baseless. If you don't believe us just ask us." Never was such a circular argument so useless. By the same reasoning Hitler was not a threat to world peace in 1939 because you could have asked a majority of people, especially in the US and they would have told you not to confront him.

I may buy the book just on your non-recommendation.

The Australian professor, previously unknown to me, has presented what appealed to me as a fresh perspective on the Watchmaker. It is the author's hope to attract readers to another pathway than "the arid desert of naturalism." The book challenged my own thinking.

Why should blind people write about a theory they cannot grasp? Instead of making elephants out of mosquitos and mixing open minded science with withful thinking the author should better spend some time to carefully read some recent publications. If he requires a better overview on the topic, Campbell's Biology 5e has a very comprehensive introduction. That would do him and so many others more benefit than getting excited about their failure to tell science from fiction.