Rating: 
Summary: Poor Response to a Great Movement and Book (Mere Creation)
Review: If this is the best that is available in response to the "new creationists" (Mere Creation), then the new creationists have nothing to worry about. This book was filled with certain errors. For instance, on pages 251-252 Pennock describes Dr. Norman Geisler's role in the Scopes II trial in Arkansas regarding UFO activity and how these manifestations are possibly demonic activity. Pennock states, "When [Geisler was] asked by the prosecuting attorney how he knew that UFO's existed, he said their existence was confirmed by an article he had read in 'Reader's Digest.'" Interestingly, the court transcripts are available to the public and Pennock should have read a copy (if he even took the time to read/research a copy) since Geisler did NOT say that the magazine he had read was "Reader's Digest" but rather it was "Science Digest." These are some of the common errors that are evident in Pennock's work, and it makes me wonder just how much of the other details Pennock failed to get correct. Other than these errors, the book itself is weak in its content and philosophical arguments. Pennock clearly demonstrates a strawman fallacy against the creationist point of view throughout the book and spends much his time harping on issues that have either already been discredited or disregarded in one way or the other. One of the worst chapters was titled "Burning Science at the Stake." The accusations that Pennock hurls at the new creationist group are simply unwarranted. The new creationists are not trying to "demonize" the so called enemy (the evolutionists) and if one would only read "Mere Creation" this would be painfully obvious. As is evident in the aforementioned chapter, Pennock spends most of his time in the book mischaracterizing the new creationists and then attacking what he has already mischaracterized. I would only recommend this book if one is only interested in reading the overall view of the debate between creationists and evolutionists. However, if you are wanting an honest assessment of the new creationists, this book will NOT supply one.
Rating: 
Summary: Creationist agendas and public education
Review: Readers interested in evolutionary questions who dismiss creationists as intellectual throwbacks and their rhetoric as harmless will find Pennock's book enlightening. For the most part, this book presented a well organized and logically developed discussion of an enormously complex topic. Pennock's field is philosophy, and he states in the preface that the issue of creationism provides an ideal case study for "examining basic issues concerning the nature of scientific theories, scientific explanation and especially scientific evidence." This, he proceeds to do, first clarifying concepts crucial to the debate, such as what constitutes "proof", defining inductive and deductive methods of inquiry, providing the reader with foundational tools with which to examine the argument he develops. I found the first section of Pennock's book in which he describes the growing number, political influence and sophistication of the "new" creationists, (which include professors such as Behe and Johnson in prestigious universities), and their increasingly aggressive tactics in U.S. schools to be the most compelling. Throughout the book, Pennock also does a superb job of articulating the philosophical and epistemological underpinnings of creationist thought - which essentially maintains that the Judeo-Christian bible constitutes the only and ultimate "scientific" authority on the question of human existence. He warns that its advocates should be taken seriously, citing numerous examples recent legislative constraints on educators and curricula. Pennock makes clear the insidious implications of this trend which are the imposition of a narrow religious viewpoint upon public education and the erosion of separation between church and state. His discussion later in the book concerning creationist attacks on naturalistic methods of inquiry is excellent, and amplifies his criticism of creationist methods and reasoning. His book also describes the various factions and internal disputes within today's creationist movement - (factions include "Young Earth Creationists" who espouse a strictly literal interpretation of Genesis (the earth is roughly 10,000 years old, "day" means 24 hours, etc), "Old Earth creationists" who unable to deny geological evidence concede the earth is older, and each "day" may have meant eons, and a number of others). He also observes that these groups, aware of their negative image, are attempting to reframe public perception of their mission, labeling themselves "origin scientists" and similarly "scientific" sounding appelations. Pennock goes on to address, point by point, old and new arguments creationists use to challenge evolutionary explanations - such as citing the fact that scientists can't turn a mouse into an elephant in the lab, thus "proving" evolution never occurred, etc. The weakest part of Pennock's book is unfortunately the point on which he based the title. In this section, he attempts an examination of the parallels between the mechanics of linguistic evolution and biological evolution,a tack he employs as an argumentative device. He explains that with this line he's attempting to 1) render the subject less emotionally charged as many people find it frightening to believe they share common lineage with primates - and 2)To highlight fallacies and refute common arguments creationists marshal against biological evolution. Unfortunately he does not develop this idea adequately or coherently, and his discussion of linguistics in this regard was superficial and sketchy, looking only at the evolution of linguistic diversity and not the evolution of language itself in humankind. This was a major disappointment, as jacket blurbs inferred the subject would be explored in more depth (on the order of Terrance Deacon's The Symbolic Species). Nevertheless, I'd still recommend the book as a scholarly and timely examination of the scientific, philosphical, theological and political issues involved in scientific inquiry. The principal value of the book however lies in its exposure of creationist methods, and the ammunition (unfortunate metaphor, but no other will do!)it provides against creationist agendas.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent refutation of the new creationism
Review: In response to court rulings that the teaching of creationism in public school science classes is unconstitutional, creationists have tried to tone down the religious aspects of creationism. They have even given creationism a new name: the so-called 'intelligent design' (ID) hypothesis. In TOWER OF BABEL, Robert T. Pennock refutes ID'ers and shows that creationism still has no business in a science classroom. In particular, Pennock provides a devastating refutation of the misguided arguments of Phillip Johnson, one of the leaders of the ID movement. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad Enough to Wish More Dogmatic Darwinists Would Praise It
Review: Try a simple excercise. Write a book in your discipline. Cite the key people in your discipline who have written on the topic from the other point of view. Ignore their arguments. See if a special interest group (secularists) will praise it. Sadly, most anti-creationist books are just agit-prop for the choir. That is what this book does without end. Pennock cites philosophers Moreland and Plantinga (whose publication records are far more distinguished than his own), but never once deals with their pro-creationist arguments. Instead, he deals with parodies of the arguments of weaker opponents. My honor undergraduates would flunk if they handed in such arguments. Final assignment: any philosophers in the audience should try to formalize the author's take on the God of the Gaps argument. Good luck.
Rating:
Summary: The evolution of language
Review: Although this book gives a fascinating snapshot of the Darwin debate in action, its arguments are flawed, and seemingly stubborn in the face of the real challenge of the current design movement. The point is to stop using flawed arguments to refute Creationists, for this only feeds the debate.
Philip Johnson's Darwin on Trial, agree or not, made a case that is not countered by simple reiteration of stale selectionism, indignant quotes from Dawkins, or moonshine about genetic algorithms. The central metaphor of the book, the Tower of Babel, leads the author into dangerous territory. The evolution of language (not the same as the evolution of the capacity of language) is most misleadingly compared with organismic evolution. The historical fate and 'evolution so-called' of vocabulary as seen in Indo-European languages cannot be generalized to the evolution of language as a whole. The latter is terra incognita. We have no real evidence of how language evolved. To say that because the original Indo-European languages split apart into Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, then from Latin into Spanish, French, Italian we have evidence of 'evolution' is complete nonsense. These transformations are all highly suggestive of downhill degenerations of original highly complex grammars whose origin is a mystery. But evidence of grammars going from simple to complex in other branches of the language tree is still of no help to Darwinists. Thus Pennock has picked one of the worst examples possible and simply throws doubt on his entire critique.
Rating:
Summary: superficial
Review: I bought this book expecting to find state of the art arguments supporting evolution and demolishing the opposition. But the arguments are weak and have been made repeatedly by others. Does the author really expect a computer program that supposedly simulates biological evolution to be acceptable evidence? Analogies with linguistics are very poorly explained - I was interested but so little solid information is given. Overall it is a straightforward polemic - the book could have been written in 50 pages, there is nothing new.
Rating:
Summary: Thorough as a review, but ToB will initiate no dialogue.
Review: Pennock's review of creationism is thorough, but the rebuttal of it is less so. His crowning example of a computer model of evolution is Tom Ray's Tierra. Pennock is apparently unaware that none of the evolution in Tierra has generated lengthy new programs that would be necessary for sustainable evolutionary progress. Later Pennock zealously defends Dawkins' virtual "biomorphs," while admitting their limitations. In 1986, Dawkins had written that when the limitations were overcome "Evolution in the computer would then really take off...." Pennock says this prediction has now been upheld by Tierra (p 262). But Tom Ray, in 1996, was still looking for a way to produce "a large spiraling upwards in complexity" in the model. Apparently its evolution hasn't really taken off yet. Pennock also rebuts creationists' attack on "naturalism." which could also be called scientific faith. It is the principle that there is nothing supernatural within nature. Call it "LaPlace's wager." On this issue we completely agree with Pennock - if creationists want to do science, they must do it scientifically. One may ask why creationists are bold enough to challenge professional scientists in the first place. Pennock gives the standard answer, that science has always had conservative, non-scientific, religious, sometimes powerful opposition. But we wonder what other modern scientific theory is so widely doubted? In a 1997 Gallup poll, 68% of American adults thought creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools. Could there be a grain of truth in the opposition to evolution? Of course there could. Science has not suddenly become infallible. Perhaps the neo-Darwinian molecular mechanism behind evolution really is inadequate for producing sustained progress. But this inadequacy would not mean that we have to abandon science altogether - as both sides in this controversy seem to suggest! Perhaps there's an entirely new answer, like panspermia. Until this controversy calms down, however, alternatives will probably be ignored.
Rating: 
Summary: A well-written book in search of an audience
Review: This book has been something of a wake-up call for me. Having grown up within the scientific community, I've always ignored the creationist movement, thinking it to be backward, rigid, and generally unwilling to accept a future with the changing face of humanity. In other words: headed for extinction. Pennock shows the battle creationist are waging in its complete form, outside the venue of the scientific community, in the courts and the schools. The threat to our children and to society at large, is not one to be taken lightly. The point Pennock makes here is not lost on me. And in this arena, the book is clearly targeted toward those such as myself, who accept the theory of evolution as a powerful and well-integrated part of the scientific view of the universe, but may be unaware of the color and scope of the attacks being made against it. But as interesting as the chapter on language evolution was, I wondered why it was there. Indeed, I believe Pennock is preaching to the choir here. I think his time would have been better spent showing us how to deal more effectively with this menace to freedom. Pennock is far too passive. I also feel that he missed a couple of great swipes at the creationists. He could have investigated their motivations from a psychological perspective. This is, after all, a territorial dispute - science is making incursions into areas once held by religion, and some people must feel very threatened by that. Another point he failed to hammer home is the relationship between science and technology. Without the scientific method in its present form, technological advances would be profoundly impacted. And with the creationists use of modern technologies, such as telecommunications, they appear as parasites on the back of science. Perhaps in the name of political correctness, Pennock made some small sacrifices in the hope of expanding his audience to those who might be sitting on a fence with regard to this issue. I can only hope that this is so. To those of you who are fence-sitters, I can only promise that Pennock has gone out of his way to speak as truthfully as possible about the scientific position. Everything contained in this book can be backed up by observation, which is something that Phillip Johnson, representing the creationist camp, cannot claim. Everyone's best interests can be served by reading this book. And I sincerely recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Book!
Review: Excellent. Pennock proves that if nothing else evolves, creationism does. A great read!
Rating:
Summary: Chilling Story
Review: A chilling book that should be required reading for school board members, educators, and parents and politicians concerned about the future of science education in this country.
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