Rating: 
Summary: Very relevant for current times
Review: A must read for anyone interested in the creation evolution debate or scientific education in general. This is the most informative and well-written book on the current manifestation of the creation evolution controversy that I have read. Dr Shanks has written a book that not only addresses the concept of Intelligent Design but that makes points applicable to the creation evolution debate in general. Shanks debunks the arguments from Anthropic coincidences, irreducible complexity, entropy and others areas. He contrasts the arguments creationist's make with those that have come down from the Enlightenment. My favorite chapter was the last one where Shanks fully exposes the wedge strategy of the creationists. Those concerned about policy-making in the US will also appreciate this book.
Rating:
Summary: Succinct tour de force
Review: After introducing his book by situating intelligent design theory in the context of resurgent religious fundamentalism, Shanks discusses traditional design arguments for the existence of God and early critical reactions (e.g., those of Hume and Kant) to them. This discussion provides background for the rest of the book.In chapter 2 Shanks examines Darwin's response to the traditional biological version of the argument from design, as well as his views of religion. Shanks also presents key developments in evolutionary biology since Darwin, including the impact of genetics and recent research bringing together issues in evolution with issues in developmental biology. In chapter 3 Shanks attends to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. He contends that errors about the meaning of the Second Law pervade creationist writings. He also argues that non-equilibrium thermodynamics has revealed how natural mechanisms can result in self-organization, by which physical systems organize themselves into complex, highly ordered states. Thus, Shanks contends, in addition to evolutionary mechanisms studied by biologists, there are other natural sources of ordered complexity working in the universe. Supernatural science is the subject of chapter 4. Shanks emphasizes that, typically, scientists do not reject the possibility of supernatural causation; they do not presently take it seriously because of a lack of convincing evidence. To sharpen the issues here, Shanks examines some recent attempts to introduce supernatural causes into medicine, namely, with respect to the efficacy of prayer as effective therapy. He points out that such studies are relevant because they are serious attempts to gather evidence in favor of supernatural causation. In chapter 5 Shanks presents some recent and influential biochemical arguments put forward by Michael Behe and others to justify the conclusion of intelligent design. Shanks argues that irreducible complexity, the centerpiece of these arguments, could have evolved. Shifting his focus from biology to cosmology, in chapter 6 Shanks focuses on arguments for the conclusion of intelligent design that proceed from the nature of the universe and from anthropic principle cosmology in particular. He argues that the cosmological design arguments are inconclusive. In the concluding chapter, Shanks briefly discusses science, morality, and God. He points out that intelligent design theorists are part of a movement which has a social agenda which goes well beyond science education. By contrast, Shanks argues that Darwin himself provides a way of thinking about morality which fits well with the democratic values which are our common inheritance from the Enlightenment. Shanks states that finally his book is about the Enlightenment and its enemies and about the choices we will all have to make, not just about science, but about life itself: how we want to live, how we want society to be structured, how we want to see the future unfold. The book concludes with a rich glossary and bibliography. Shanks has written a fine book. It is quite timely, immensely informative, logically rigorous, well-documented, and a pleasure to read. As nearly as I (a retired philosophy professor) can tell, this is cutting edge stuff, clearly presented. Anyone interested in creationism, intelligent design, or (at least if one is a layperson) just plain contemporary evolutionary biology or cosmology, or concerned to preserve us from the rabid forces of religious obscurantism, would benefit from reading this excellent book. With a mere 246 pages of text, it is a succinct tour de force.
Rating: 
Summary: Only persuasive to those brainwashed by propaganda
Review: All the scientific terminology cannot mask the religious fervor of Darwinianism on the defensive, vainly trying to hold the fort against intellectual, logical, spiritual, rational, scientific and philosophic attack from those not taken in by naturalism's religious propaganda.
As a religious treatise and apology of the faith in Darwin's humanistic materialism, the book is quite strident and even shrill in counterattacking the Creator God of Genesis. The author is persuaded, but not particularly persuasive; convinced, but far from convincing. It is the desperate gasping of a fundamentalist intellectual minority trying to stifle genuine inquiry and challenge to the monolith of Evolutionism. Ironically, the greater their struggle to resist free and open exchange in the marketplace of ideas, the tighter their own noose around their windpipe. If Evolutionistic propagandism is so true and unarguably beyond question, what's there to fear?!? The histrionic panic/ultra-defensiveness comes across as fanatic as religious inquisitions of the Middle Ages. Creation and the Creator behind it all have been around a while and are not going anywhere anytime soon as the predominant belief system of the educated world. Evolution and its watchdogs might as well get used to the fact and, if among the faithful, believing rational scientific truth and self-evident righteousness of Darwin's Cause will prevail, have nothing to fear except fear itself. It is suspected that there is escalating slippage of confidence among the faithful in the rightness of their Cause, and that is the basis for the irrationale behind such extremist Theophobia.
Signed - Iconoclast
Rating:
Summary: Required reading for anyone interested in ID
Review: An excellent book which I enthusiastically recommend to anyone interested in the present "intelligent design" anti-evolution movement. In fact, my recommendation has a touch of envy -- I have written on ID myself, and when reading Shanks, I often found myself wishing I had found such a good way to express what's wrong with ID. I also notice there are a number of uncalled-for and anonymous attacks on the book posted here. I read these as further recommendations for the book. It obviously has touched a nerve among some ID supporters at least. Perhaps some will be prompted to go beyond vituperation and reply to ID's critics with some scientific substance, showing how ID provides a better explanation of complexity than what mainstream natural scientists are accustomed to. I doubt that this is going to happen, but it would be the more appropriate response. Shanks has presented a very good explanation of why ID has not been able to challenge mainstream science; that judgment will stand as long as ID proponents present complaints about exclusion rather than scientific substance.
Rating: 
Summary: A mixed bag
Review: First, the good. Shanks does an effective job of accurately summarizing the scientific the arguments supporting evolution by natural selection. He does this in ways that are mostly accessible to readers whether they have a background in sciences (biology, chemistry, or physics) or not. Likewise, the reader can see the weaknesses of ID as so much arm-waving. He does this by grounding his arguments in the scientific method of hypothesis testing, so that there can be no (real, substantial) argument that scientists are rejecting ID out-of-hand because they don't like it. The new ingredient to Shanks' book is the philosophical grounding of his arguments. He argues that arguments for ID are based on the metaphors we use to understand abstract ideas like the development of organisms and other complex systems, and makes an effective case that the "life as a machine" metaphor obstructs our understanding of, and critical thinking about, how life could evolve. Now for the not-so-good. It seems that any good argument should define what it is arguing for and against. Shanks never tells us as much, unless one consults the glossary (to which the text does not refer). This could potentially weaken further arguments through the very mis-interpretation he spends much of the book lamenting. (So for example, biological evolution is change in allele frequencies of a population over time.) It's also clear that Shanks is well-versed in the philosophical foundations of the anti-science of IDers, but his descriptions and explanations are muddled in a way that suggests he has not spent enough time (or had a good enough editor) reviewing how the common person knows what she knows. The chapters themselves progress logically, but the organization within the chapters is sometimes hard to follow and circuitous, a curious breakdown in a book by a philosopher. Finally, I was disappointed that such a strong work, overall, suffers from what seemed to me as self-sabotage. Early in the book, Shanks identifies himself as someone who does not believe in a deity. This reader took it as a courageous declaration of the author's point of view, which purpose was the make sure readers suffer no ambiguity about his point of view. (Other readers, no doubt, will interpret it as the devil himself setting pen to paper, but this book is not written for minds permanently closed.) I'm afraid, though, that between that declaration and other, rather pointed jabs at IDers, that Shanks weakens the "punch" of what is otherwise a succinct and powerful volume. I'd also suggest that what was missing for me from this, and other, volumes about creationism and ID is more of an exploration about what such people and groups think and how they got that way -- beyond the obvious explanation that many/most IDers believe that a deity created the world we experience. I'm afraid that for all its strengths, this book lapses into what IDers and many other will take as yet another arrogant proclamation for evolution and against deities, and that's just not where the cheese is. We scientists owe it to people to inform, which Shanks does quite well, but we'd do better to keep our literate put-downs to ourselves if we hope to engage people in this rally to save critical thinking.
Rating:
Summary: Some clarifications
Review: For some reason, many people (supposedly intelligent and cognizant of their opponents' views) continue to confuse "Creationism" with "Intelligent Design." The latter, the ID movement (Behe, Polkinghorne, Dembski, etc.), is the idea that a divine being orchestrated the evolutionary process. The former, the Creationists (mostly fundamentalist protestants), believe in a literal reading of the Genesis account of creation and thus accept the 6-day model. [It should be noted that the early church was much more in favor of allegorical readings of scripture, e.g., St. Augustine did not believe the Genesis 6-day account to be literal.] The confusion lies in the fact that Creationists, of course, believe in "intelligent design" (but not evolution), while ID proponents, of course, believe in "creation" (but via evolution). [It should be noted that some in the ID movement doubt, not deny, evolution, but the vast majority don't.] The ID crowd is largely made-up of Catholics, Anglicans, Jews, mainline Protestants, and, increasingly, Evangelicals (i.e., conservative Protestants but not Fundamentalists). In fact, the leading ID proponents today are Evangelicals. Numerous Muslim intellectuals in the West are also accepting of the ID view.
In sum, we need to stop confusing "Creationists" with "Evolutionary Theists." The latter accept evolution without Darwin. The real debate in academia is not between evolution and "creationism" (as the Creationists understand it); it is between neo-Darwinism and Intelligent Design.
A good overview of the ID position(s) is found in 'Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing,' edited by William Dembski.
Rating:
Summary: It is time to stop posting anonimous reviews
Review: I fully agree with Professor Levitt - it is a bad idea to post anonimous reviews. If the reader from Ann Arbor is indeed an expert in cell biology and is so well familiar with the ongoing dispute between ID advocates and their opponnents, why is he afraid to sign his review wherein he attempts to denigrate Niall Shanks's excellent book? His defense of the ID advocates who, as he seems to hint, are allegedly deprived of the freedom to express their views, is preposterous. There is not a single argument in that unseemly attack on Shanks which has any substance. Shanks succeeded very well in revealing the lack of scientific contents in the so called ID theory and its real roots in religious zealotry. Since the reader from Ann Arbor chose to remain anonimous, there is no way to ascertain that he is indeed a cell bilogist with 20 years of experience, and his underhanded attack does nothing to disprove the allegedly wild statements by Shanks. Shanks's book contains a well substantiated analysis of Intelligent Design showing its futility and its anti-scientific goals. It also contains a very eloquent and making a lot of sense foreword by Richard Dawkins. It is highly recommended to everybody interested in understanding the real nature of the ID activities and the emptiness of their arguments.
Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: I ordered this book with the hope that it would effectively deal with Intelligent Design arguments. It did no such thing. To illustrate, I will examine only one chapter, chapter 2 "Darwin and the Illusion of Intelligent Design." Page 50 to page 88 was a discussion of a wide variety of topics including basics genetics, Darwin's early belief in some form of theistic evolution (which he later abandoned), developmental biology and other topics, all fairly elementary. In this section Shanks did not even attempt to refute ID. Finally, on page 88 to the end of the chapter (5 pages), Shanks discussed the evolution of the eye, a topic rarely discussed by ID but by creationists! He claims that comparative studies of extant animals reveal a nearly continuous range of eye types from simple to complex (actually, as Shanks notes on page 90, it is far more accurate to conclude that one third of all animals have no means to detect light, one third have simple light sensitive organs, and one third have complex verted or inverted eyes similar to humans). All of this is very interesting, but hardly proves that the complex modern eye evolved from simple, single light sensitive cells. What is needed is, not a comparison of living animals, all of which are on the tips of the evolutionary tree (all life descended from the first cells 3.5 billion years ago, thus all existing life had the same length of time for evolution to occur) but fossil evidence of eye decent with modification. Show us the empirical evidence, and that will shut up the Darwin critics. It is correctly noted that soft parts preserve poorly in the fossil record. This may be a valid reason for the lack of fossil evidence, but it is not positive empirical evidence. Actually, we have over a million examples of life in Amber that should give us a clue as to how eye evolution occurred, but does not. Comparisons of extant eyes to prove decent with modification are very problematic and this is why it is now proposed that the eye evolved 32 (or 36, depending on which authority you consult) separate times. Rather than lining up simple to complex eyes, we now have 30 some separate lines, all taking a different path (and a need for even more transitional forms)! Furthermore, the biochemical evidence only complicates the picture. It often contradicts current assumptions about evolution trees and some genes in "simple eyes" are very similar to those used in "complex eyes." The problem is they are way too similar! Also, I expect a science book to be professional, and avoid scurrilous attacks on others. Phases such as ID ideas are "parasites crawling on the body of science" (page 49) are unnecessary and only will alienate fair minded people and play into the hands of creationists who claim that Darwinists are intolerant and dogmatic.
Rating:
Summary: Proposes an alternative to accepted accounts of evolutionary
Review: In the last fifteen years a controversial new theory of the origins of biological complexity has evolved, fostering a set of bitter debates around the world in education versus science teachings. God, The Devil, And Darwin: A Critique Of Intelligent Design Theory proposes an alternative to accepted accounts of evolutionary theory: that life is so complex and the universe so fine-tuned that the only possible explanation is the fact of an intelligent designer. Niall Shanks has written the first introduction to and critique of this new intellectual movement theory, providing both a history and arguments for and against Intelligent Design.
Rating:
Summary: ok
Review: intelligent writing, although i prefer C.S. Lewis as a better author overall.
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