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96 of 134 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Burying the real issues in a pile of chaff, June 7, 2005
The question in the title of the book is an important one well worth a serious philosophical and theological analysis in light of modern science. Unfortunately, the reader will have to look elsewhere for that discussion. Ms. O'Leary's book is a rehash of Intelligent Design (ID) propaganda which promotes shoddy science, shallow theology and incompetent journalistic research.The basic problematic of the book begins in the preface where Ms. O'Leary states: "I began to see clearly that Darwinism is a theory of evolution that explicitly denies design in biology in order to leave God out to of the picture." Although, in the body of the text, she does make some effort to discriminate between the scientific theory of evolution and a philosophy which she, following the ID lead, calls Darwinism, this is so muted that the average reader must be forgiven if they equate the diatribes against Darwinism as an attack on the science of evolution. The first example of shoddy science shows up in the introduction where a side-bar defines the Big Bang as an explosion. The next page labels a highly improbable event as "impossible" even though it is part of probability that improbable, even highly improbable events can happen. There is the usual ID/creationist confusion of the theory of evolution with theories about the origin of life leading to inappropriate commentary on the Urey-Miller experiments. There is the usual ID/creationist quote-mining of Gould's defence of Punctuated Equilibrium and misrepresentation of what that thesis entails. And this merely scratches the surface. A shallow theology also runs right through the book. It begins by equating evolution with chance, chance with nature and nature with athiesm. No supporter of modern evolutionary theory would agree that evolution is a matter of chance. Indeed a side-bar on page 172 quotes "arch-villain" Richard Dawkin' statement from Climbing Mount Improbable to the effect that designoid objects are not accidental but the product of a non-random process. But the more significant theological error is to assume that a deity cannot or will not use natural, random processes to achieve its goals. There is nothing inherently atheistic about chance processes or natural processes. But the ID and creationist movements have convinced millions of sincere believers that there is. The effect of this theological error is that Christian organizations spend millions on combatting the wrong target: setting their sights on the science of evolution itself, rather than on the philosophies of materialism, naturalism and scientism which mistakenly claim to be the logically necessary conclusions of evolution. Finally, there is the matter of journalism. Here I can offer some kudoes. Ms. O'Leary does a fine job of recounting the social history of Darwin's theory--of how it came to be associated with materialism, and of the key role played by the evolution=atheism propagandists such as Huxley and Mencken, Dawkins and Sagan. Her analysis of the film Inherit the Wind in comparison to the actual event of the Scopes trial is superb. Her brief history of the rise of creationism is also excellent. But in contrast to these virtues, her recounting of evolution and science is appallingly bad. For example, the only mention of dinosaur-bird transitional forms is Archeoraptor, the hoax which embarrassed National Geographic. There is not a single mention of the dozens of legitimate finds of feathered dinosaur fossils. In this context, such an omission amounts to the very suppression of evidence which she alleges against supporters of evolutionary theory. She has uncritically accepted a perversion of Gould's punctuated equilibrium thesis when correct information is readily available. Twice she quotes, and once alludes to, Gould's comment on lack of transitional fossils, when a simple reading of the primary literature would indicate that Gould was speaking of transitional fossils at the species level, not transitional fossils in general. One of the most striking features of the book is that it nowhere deals with the actual science of evolution. The focus is rather on the conflicting philosophies that have gathered around the science. Unfortunately, the implication is that the philosophies establish the truth of the science. This is simply not the case, and, ironically, it is a creationist scientist, Kurt Wise, who points this out. Unfortunately, while Ms. O'Leary is willing to accept that a creationist can still do good science, she does not accept the corollary that "Darwinists" can also do good science, in spite of their belief system. There are many important matters that do need to be discussed in scientific, philosophical and theological circles around design and chance. Now and again Ms. O'Leary touches on them. But the serious weaknesses of this book preclude it as a significant contributor to this important discussion.
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9 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Fabulous source of sources, much better on ID than on Darwinism, February 15, 2006
I would urge anyone who is interested in the evolution - Intelligent Design (ID) controversy to pick this up, if only for the enormous number of sources that it points to, many of them on the Internet.
I have a few problems with the book as a whole. Despite O'Leary's insistence that this is not an issue of religion versus science, religion, almost always Christianity, keeps coming through her arguments like a mark on a wall that can't be painted over. If her issues are scientific, why does she constantly berate Neo-Darwinists for being atheists, not just for making non-theistic assumptions? This is especially dubious since, as she occasionally states, at least a sizable number of them do believe in deity(s). She doesn't seem to be able to decide whether to welcome these beliefs or deny them since they contradict her view of Darwinism. Her remarks about Kenneth Miller's religious convictions and theistic evolution in general (p.240) seem out of place if science is really the issue.
When she quotes, with apparent approval (p.200) Phillip Johnson's complaint that Darwinian theory is adjusted every time it is presented with new facts, one has to think that there is some basic flaw in her understanding of science.
This is purely a matter of taste, but I find many of her subheadings a bit twee, although they are helpful in locating material, especially since the index leaves a bit to be desired.
I think that she has also created considerable ambiguity on certain points and she ought to try to be clearer in future editions. She says that "For practical purposes, in this book, "God" and "design" are generic terms, except where qualified in context". In the former case, I don't think that this has been too practical, especially when she is quoting other people, and I think she should find a real generic, "deity(s)" for example. The reader should also be aware that at one point she equates "creationism" solely with Young Earth Creationism (YEC). I would use the term to refer to any system involving a supernatural creator, and I think that, again, especially when she is quoting other people, it can lead to confusion.
O'Leary appears to be an advocate of Intelligent Design, and this book explains it much better than many that I have read, e.g. Phillip Johnson. I am still left with the feeling that ID isn't quite ready for prime time or science classes. While I am glad to read that ID leaders like William Dembski and Michael Behe recognize the need for rigorous research, this appears to be something that they intend to do in the future. I am all for people following their ideas, and maybe eventually there will be a fruitful dialogue with other scientists but O'Leary doesn't give any evidence that they have much to show so far.
She says that the originators : "... decided to assume that the information was not organized by chance, but by a designing intelligence." That is far too big and basic an assumption for this to qualify as a science. It is using the desired conclusion as the premise. Dembski, et al., can certainly believe that some things cannot be explained except by an intelligent designer, but Darwinists can simply argue back that they can, and we are nowhere until someone comes up with some proof. O'Leary argues (p. 175) that it can be demonstrated statistically in forensics, archeology and SETI when something is design and when it is chance. O.K., but where are the figures for ID? I don't accept Stephen C. Meyer's argument that information requires an intelligent source: that dripping sound outside my window informs me that the snow is melting, but water doesn't have much intellectual capacity. As for more complex sets of information, animals can perform feats of navigation and homing that would require considerable intellect on our part, but they are not generally thought to do this by conscious calculation. (Deva Sobel's Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time shows just how difficult it was for us to develop reliable navigation.) If the reference is to "information" as in Information Theory, Mark Perakh, in his somewhat vituperous work Unintelligent Design critiques William Dembski's analyses in his books Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities (Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory) and No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence.
I find her arguments that ID does not require a deity(s) unconvincing: what are the alternatives? She quotes Michael J. Denton, in a magnificently ambiguous statement (p. 212-213), as suggesting that perhaps living things or the biosphere are intelligent. If we are discussing the origin of life, neither of those can be the source: by definition they wouldn't be pre-existing. If we are discussing the development of life once it was established, is he suggesting that bacteria might have designed the cilia of paramecia? The idea that she develops at length is panspermia, or the seeding of the earth with life from outer space, but even she concedes that that doesn't really resolve the issue. I don't want to make too much of this point - an observation can be accurate even if the underlying mechanism cannot be explained, e.g., I could confidently declare that airplanes don't fly by flapping their wings like a bird, even if I couldn't explain how they do fly. Throughout history, observations which later proved to be significant and accurate have been ridiculed because the scientist couldn't initially produce an explanation. If ID advocates could convincingly demonstrate the need for an intelligent designer, it would not be immediately necessary to identify the designer, but thus far they haven't done even that, as noted above.
O'Leary complains that opponents of ID encourage a false perception of their underlying philosophy by failing to interview non-Christian advocates, but oddly enough, she fails to redress this lamentable oversight. Since she claims that Berlinski, at least, has no religious convictions, surely this would have been one of the best strategies for convincing us that the science is the real issue. Readers regretting her omission can find writings by Berlinski on Discovery.org and a (self?) interview on idthefuture.com. O'Leary declares that some ID advocates believe in evolution, and it would have been helpful if she had been more forthcoming on this topic.
Her discussion of the relationship between ID and other opponents of Darwinism, chiefly YECs, is quite interesting, as is her discussion of the social and political history of creationism.
As for her discussion of Darwinism, less would have been more. O'Leary's "any weapon that comes to hand" approach seriously undermines her credibility with me, as do her self-contradictions. These include those classic clashing cliches of anti-Darwinism rhetoric, the claim that biologists are simultaneously an oppressive monolith crushing dissent under the Darwinian juggernaut AND that they are deserting Darwinism in droves. The juggernaut image also seems contradicted by the Phillip Johnson quote mentioned above.
O'Leary starts off with a lengthy section on cosmology which doesn't seem to be terribly relevant. The main temporal concern for Darwinists is the age of the earth, and only indirectly the age of the universe. Whether or not it is eternal strikes me as utterly irrelevant. I cannot imagine how the theory would be affected one way or the other by whether the universe is Big Bang, or Steady State, etc. If the universe were eternal, but the earth was only 6,000 years old, Darwinism would be in trouble. She asserts, without documentation, that in Darwin's time, the dominant view was that the universe is eternal, which she associates with godlessness. This is a new one on me, and seems to be contradicted by the historians that she quotes: Del Ratzch (p.73), Ronald Numbers (p.75) and Edward J. Larsen (p.118)who argue that in Darwin's time, most western scientists were committed Christians, and most Christians had no problem with evolution. She presents no evidence that these people had abandoned the traditional Christian belief that the universe had a beginning and that history has an end. (Arguably, if souls continue with God for all eternity, the universe doesn't have an end, but the metaphysics of whether or not God and Heaven are outside of the universe are beyond me.) For a better understanding of Darwin's thought and its relationship to Christianity, I recommend William E. Phipps Darwin's Religious Odyssey. The book does not focus solely on Darwin, but discusses the history of the relationship between Christianity and science.
She also blames Darwinian theory for Social Darwinism and other undesirable philosophical positions, although she states(p.72) "Darwin's theory of natural selection does not provide a basis for the Social Darwinists' eugenic beliefs." Darwinism is likewise blamed for World War I, the historical flaws of the movie "Inherit the Wind" and various other things that O'Leary doesn't care for. I suspect that she doesn't like it when people argue that religious violence and corruption invalidate the idea of a creator.
A good book to read if one is interested in the controversy, but I will take a wait-and-see attitude towards the future of ID and science.
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41 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A different kind of book about creation evolution, December 3, 2004
I estimate that about 3 to 4 books about the creation-evolution controversy are published each week. Many are by non-scientists in favor of creationism of some type, and most repeat the same information. Many are not worth reading. This is a very different book on this topic.This book does not argue for one side, as most books on this topic do, but objectively discusses all sides of the controversy. For this reason all sides of the controversy, from young earth to old earth creationists, to theistic evolutionists to Intelligent Design theorists, to atheist evolutionists, will find this book very useful. It is written by an award winning journalist and has much new material of interest to all sides of this never ending controversy. In many ways it is an update of Ron Numbers classic book titled The Creationists. Numbers focused on the history from 1920 to about 1980 and this book covers 1980 to date, although some background before 1980 is covered. It covers the science issues but much of the focus is on the history and non science area. As such, it stands alone in the field and has no competition. If you want a book that covers the whole controversy, this book is for you. If you want a book that defends one side or the other side I would look elsewhere.
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