Intelligent Design 101: Leading Experts Explain the Key Issues (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Intelligent Design 101 brings together leading scholars and researchers from the fields of science and intelligent design studies, such as Michael Behe and Phillip Johnson. Their detailed and insightful essays form an introduction to intelligent design, from the basics of the theory, to its history and growing place in science and education.

About the Author

H. Wayne House (Th.D., Concordia Seminary, St. Louis; J.D., Regent University School of Law) is Distinguished Research Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Faith Seminary in Tacoma, Washington, and Professor of Law, Trinity Law School in Santa Ana, California. Dr. House serves on the board of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. He is author or editor of more than seventy journal and magazine publications, and a contributor to several books, dictionaries and encyclopedias. He is also the author of more than twenty books, including The Christian and American Law and Israel: The Land and the People. He has been married to Leta Frances McConnell for forty years, has two grown children, and five grandchildren. He enjoys playing with his grandchildren, reading, and traveling to ancient lands.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Kregel Publications (March 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0825427819
• ISBN-13: 978-0825427817
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #99,408 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent arguments versus irrational emotionalism, July 10, 2008

By	proud2b - See all my reviews

I found this book to be a clear and helpful presentation of the evidence for the theory of Intelligent Design, and the nature of science. Unlike the emotional, and often irrational, reviews by some found on this page, that resemble scientism rather than science, Intelligent Design 101 argues that the universe is best explained by reference to some type of designer. The authors do not identify the designer, though I would suspect that most believe in the God of Christianity; nonetheless the argument does not rest on belief in the Christian God, but could be one accepted in different religions, and even in Greek philosophy.

I recommend this book as a thoughtful introduction to the scientific, philosophical and legal aspects of the current debate on intelligent design of the universe versus the belief that something may arise from nothing.

40 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent proposals made / unintelligent responses here, May 27, 2008

By	M. Hyght "mhyght" (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The point of this book is to give a short primer on the subject. Hence the "101" in the title. The authors that contributed to it (as any non-activist ID opposer familiar with their work knows) present intelligent, debatable arguments for their positions. Phillip Johnson, J.P. Moreland and Michael Behe are far from narrow minded fundamentalists. The positions and arguments they make here present significant challenges to scientific materialism. Those challenges are not defeated by quick dismissals or name calling.

If a person subscribes to the view that science cannot even suggest design in the universe, that's alright. They disagree with the authors, who by the way are saying that it merely suggests design. But to label the authors as mere creationists trying to get God back in schools (or worse), they do a strong disservice to the concept of scientific debate, and in fact partake in the narrow minded, dogmatic practices they accuse others of.
Of course there are many other highly esteemed scientists (in non-dogmatic circles) who are proponents of ID who did not write for this particular book. But their reasons for supporting ID are just as strong, valid and maybe even stronger than the ones presented here. But again, the point of this book is to give a short primer on the subject.
For the life of me I cannot understand the rabid, froth-mouthed opposition to any pro-ID person or argument out there. And the opposition says that ID proponents are the intolerant ones. It's astounding. Astounding and sad.

33 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rational 'spin' unspun: An overview of the evidence for ID, June 3, 2008

By	Lee Bowman - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For those seeking more familiarity regarding the 'evolution war', this is a good place to start. This overview of the evidence encapsulates key points that are often overlooked or debunked by critics, and presents evidence to back the claims of ID, which state that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, rather than an undirected process such as natural selection." Unfortunately, them's fightin' words. How so? A Darwinian world view now dominates the classroom, funding organizations, the popular press, and even the courts. Some say that to question certain tenets neoDarwinism (NDE), is to attack science. It's stated here that quite possibly the reverse is true. So how has this debate come to be, progressed, and as of late, stumbled? This book will help bring you up to date.

Phillip Johnson briefly chronicles the unfolding of the debate in recent times, and of the formation of organizations that opposed the Darwinian basic premise of natural causation. Many of these groups fought among themselves as well, over religious differences. Scientists, then and now, point to those motives as the reason for their opposition to NDE. True to an extent, but today's opposition is more science based, as Johnson points out.

To summarize the political nature of the ongoing engagement, he discusses the court cases, then goes on to define his current 'wedge strategy', defining it as a wedge of truth, rather than religion as some critics have defined it.

J.P. Moreland stresses philosophical issues, not that philosophy is necessarily germane to science, but because science uses philosophical arguments, and uses them improperly to refute Intelligent Design. He goes on to discuss at length predictions, explanatory power, either empirical or conceptual, and if conceptual, internal or external (where an external, rational belief need be considered), and so on.

Moreland's entire thesis, I would say, are critiques of what is testable, what is not, what is rational, or what might be considered circular reasoning, and the pros and cons of various ways to assess the evidence. Given the constraints that are imposed on scientific consensus, he makes an excellent case that changes in the progression of biologic systems can be more logically explained by intervention, i.e. Intelligent Design, and can thus be supported.

Casey Luskin discusses the dilemma of finding Intelligent Design in nature, and does so on many fronts, most interesting perhaps, the study of DNA and its complexity. It is often stated that there are no peer reviewed articles attesting to design, a teleological inference, and yet Luskin cites a recent article in Cell Biology International, explaining that such a form of integrated complexity [DNA coding] could not arise by natural processes, regardless of how much time is allowed. Another paper cited challenges Darwinian mechanisms, ascribing the requirement of "large quantities of prescriptive information", and that "[it] requires 'choice contingency' rather than 'chance contingency' or necessity." The foundational evolutionary principal of chance and/or necessity is hereby effectively challenged, and in a peer review journal.

Several other topics make this chapter one of the best I've seen for explaining ID, and how it is logically placed within biosystems. Micromachines are discussed, including the cellular flagellum, and rather than being 'unspun', as biologist Kenneth Miller has stated in a 2004 paper, "it is still spinning just fine" (a quote from Wm. Dembski's response to the paper, with input from Casey Luskin). Is co-option of multi-use proteins, along with horizontal or lateral transfer adequate to explain how totally new cell machinery arises? In this chapter, the arguments and counterarguments are well summarized.

Biosystematics, the study of taxonomic relationships, how they arose, and how they function is discussed at length (~ ten pages) to conclude the chapter. Transitional forms, morphological patterns, isolation, convergence, extinction, punctuated equilibrium are discussed, and you should come away with an excellent overview of both sides, and their relative merits. My take: Adaptive evolution may well be a 'designed in' function.

Michael Behe takes on irreducible complexity, the eye, the flagellum, and the clotting system. Although Darwinist defenders like to claim that the eye evolved from a light sensitive patch, an evolved cup, an evolved retinal surface, a pinhole lense to a variable refractive lense, and with aiming, focusing, and focal length adjusters thrown in, and to postulate these changes occurred through natural selection of genetic mistakes, Michael disagrees. While not touching on all of these areas, he cogently deflates the patch to a matrix cup fallacy. His description of the highly complex light detecting process, shows that it is sophistry to conflate vision with a purported ascendant light sensitive patch, merely because these crude forms exist in nature.

To conclude, he discusses the blood clotting cascade, and Russell Doolittle's counter augments, based on a case study of mice which lacked two of the needed clotting factors. Doolittle's claim was that removal of those two factors was not harmful to the host, showed evidence of redundancy in the process, and pointed to random causation. Behe argues for IC, discredits Doolittle's conclusions, and pokes fun at a copy and paste article by Michael Ruse regarding Doolittle's case study.

The concluding essays by Jay Richards and Eddie Colanter cover the philosophical, theological and historical aspects of man's view of himself and of nature, and do it effectively. The final chapter by Wayne House delves into legal issues that will continue to confront the ID movement. Also included is 'A Reply to Francis Collins' Darwinian Arguments for Common Ancestry of Apes and Humans', by Casey Luskin and Logan Gage. Forty pages of footnote references are also included.

I would classify this book as recommended reading for anyone new to the subject, as well as for journalists, pundits and literary critics who will benefit by gaining a more honest and objective overview of the basics, than from most of what's out there currently in the popular press.