Rating: 
Summary: One of the better books refuting Intelligent Design
Review: I openly wonder if many of the negative reviews come from people who have never read the book but feel it is their Christian duty to defend their creation myths. The sad reality is that people whose search for truth is based upon faith, will struggle with science because the world views are so different.
As for the book itself, I thought the author was effective on several levels at explaining the different and contradictory factions within the "Creation Science" community. The thing that distinguishes them is how much of the biblical story they are willing to give up to preserve even the impression that they are scientists.
Obviously young earth creationists have the most difficulty and are the easiest to dismiss. However those pushing the Intelligent Design theories can be dismissed with a little more thought and analysis.
The author's analogous use of linguistic evolution to organic evolution and the implications to the mythical "Tower of Babel" is certainly effective. A reason why linguists don't get the ire of Christians is that the Tower is not as central to their mythology as the creation is. The Christ of the New Testament came to redeem Adam and his posterity for his fall in the garden. Rejecting the creation story has far reaching implications for Christians and is why Darwinian evolution is so threatening to their belief system.
Scientists owe people like Pennock a big thank you. Unfortunately, scientists go on doing science forgetting that society may not care what the evidence leads to. The implications for the United States was appropriately discussed by the author and gives cause for real concern regarding science education in this country.
Rating:
Summary: The Courage to Be
Review: I'm about 3/4 through this book and loving it. Where Pennock excels in supporting his refutation of the ID and Creationist claims to legitimacy, far exceeds where his argument is less-than-illuminating of his own views. He succeeds overwhelmingly in his overall argument.
For those who argue (quite angrily in their reviews of books that support evolution) for support of ID or Creationism, the question remains, who are you making this argument for? Why this angry, vociferous push to be accepted into the realm of science? Religious belief is a matter of faith, not proof.
On page 274 of Pennock's book he makes a statement:
"Indeed, for many Christian believers, one's true faith is only proven when it survives in the face of events that would naturally cause one to doubt God's presence. To hold on to belief come what may is a sign of religious virtue. Contrarily, science takes it to be a virtue that one witholds belief in the truth of a proposition until it is supported by the weight of evidence."
It's clear that if one has no need, as the majority of Christians do not, to cleave to a literalist reading of scripture, then one has no need to refute scientific reasoning. Contrarily, it's impossible for a scriptural literalist to objectively review scientific arguments for the soundness of their experimental processes because scientific methodology threatens their need for absolutism.
It takes moral and intellectual courage, as Tillich wrote, to live in a world full of ambiguity and uncertainty. The absence of that courage requires reliance on some ideology of absolute answers.
Absolute answers are beyond verification using scientific methodology. They require faith. Those with the courage to maintain that faith in the face of all evidence to the contrary are comforted in their anxiety about an uncertain world.
ID arguments are intellectually dishonest, their attempt to distance themselves from Creationists is a disingenuous faint, and their ends are morally suspect.
Rating: 
Summary: no science - just bias
Review: This book, along with virtually every other book that tears Creationism apart, is based on the same type of 'faith' that Christians use to support their belief in Creationism, in the sense that it takes a whole lot more faith to believe that life somehow evolved from a bunch of muck and goo than from a God who created it (no evolution involved). Evolutionists, or anyone against Creationism, uses arguments which are even more ridiculous than those which they argue against. Perhaps the evolutionists don't realize this, but science has been wrong much more than it's been right. This book defends it's message simply by saying that the Bible doesn't show any use of currently accepted scientific methods, hypotheses, or 'proofs' that agree with today's findings that languages develop ("evolve") over time. Of course it doesn't!! IF I asked the evolutionists to show a Bible of their faith, evolution, it would not have scientific proof, methods, analyses, etc. to show it's accuracy to our world, either. That's why it's called FAITH! Evolutionists supposed 'proofs' are nothing but sets of bones, dated with an inaccurate method, many times put together in vain, in order to falsely prove their theories so the university they worked for kept funding their research. If evolution did happen, then books like the Bible, which would contain evolution as truth, would now be discarded as myth by the scientific community - just the opposite of today. I look forward to seeing how many negative reviews I get from those who disagree, but are not able to show any different.
Rating:
Summary: Perceptive, penetrating and persuasive
Review: Pennock's denounces the attempts to incorporate religious dogma into public education. It is the finest of several analogous efforts published over two decades. With penetrating insight, he presents the full range of Christian creationist ideologies, many self contradictory. He examines how slandering Darwin's concept of natural selection ["evolution"] goes beyond biology. The real issue, he assures us, is the curtailing of the liberalisation of American society. In well-crafted prose, the author maintains your interest in a subject at once hilarious and terrifying. He declares that the issue is greater than religion versus science. It is one striking at the very root of American ideals.The book provides a general history of 20th Century "creationism", its programme and its proponents. The later "Intelligent Design" movement, which declares itself a "science" instead of a religious concept, Pennock declares a sham. Its influence is far too great, yet built from shoddy materials. Tracing the ideas and publications of such figures as Henry Morris and his followers, Pennock describes the propaganda techniques of the Institute for Creation Research and the recent wave material camouflaged under "scientific" or "legal" disguises. Pennock pores over their material, pinpointing their fallacies and exposing their tactics. He shows how evidence is ignored or twisted, explaining how ideology governs speeches, publications and strategy. Through it all, he shows how the Christians are as much at war with each other as they are with "materialism", the label they apply to Darwinian scholars. Pennock adopts the unique method of showing how the evolution of languages repeats the biological pattern. From an original, lost language, modern tongues evolved in different environments. It continues to evolve today. It's a fitting analogy, one which teachers should note and apply in the classroom. It's appropriate that a scholar of Pennock's stature should thus ally science with the humanities. As he points out, much of the assault on biological evolution could easily be applied to farming, home life and law. The author examines some of the renowned figures of the IDC cabal with a penetrating gaze. Pennock charitably skims over Michael Behe's ignorance of evolutionary process to focus on lawyer Phil Johnson. Johnson's legal training prompts him to address all questions in absolutes and to create straw men as easily demolished targets. Pennock simply dissects Johnson's writings to demonstrate not only false assumptions, but contradictions so severe as to inspire the reader to wonder how he maintains his academic position. According to Pennock, Johnson's works betray a messianic mentality from which he institutes a project to redeem American society. It's to Pennock's credit that the term "demagogue" doesn't appear in the text. One can only admire his forbearance. Pennock's patience must have been stretched in undertaking the research to produce this book. He has debated Darwin's defamers, suffered through the morass of creationist publications and endured the assault on evidence unashamedly displayed at the creationists' museum. It can hardly be beaten as an exercise in mental self-flagellation. Yet, this book results in a mine of information, reasoned analysis and fine exposition. Every science or humanities teacher in North America would do well to consider keeping a copy close at hand. It's an invaluable resource. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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