God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science

Rating:
Summary: Modern and Comprehensive
Review: Teleological arguments are arguments for the existence of God from (apparent) design in the natural world. The arguments went out of fashion for a while after criticism by Hume and Kant, and especially after Darwin's theory of evolution which attempts to explain how complex, goal directed biological systems may have developed via random genetic mutations over generations without any intervention by a divine designer.
But with astonishing breakthroughs in such fields as cosmology and biochemistry, teleological arguments have been reformulated in many different, sophisticated and powerful forms. This anthology of articles by prominent analytic philosophers, physicists and biologists examines some of these arguments.
The book begins with Manson's introduction to, and very clear outline of, the subsequent discussion; then the first section discusses some general (and important) considerations about the arguments and includes some excellent and clear material by Swinburne and Sober, among others (but I didn't like the article by Narveson).
The second section focuses on teleological arguments from physical cosmology - the apparent fine-tuning of various cosmological constants and conditions of our universe for life - with excellent material by Davies, Craig, Collins and McGrew.
The third section explores one putative way to avoid inferring a designer from such fine-tuning by introducing the existence of many universes (If there are many universes with different conditions, then the probability that one might turn out life-permitting might not be so low). The debate here is very interesting, and an article by White, in my opinion, original.
The fourth section debates the putative evidence of intelligent design in biological organisms. Behe describes putative "irreducible complexity", which is claimed a major difficulty for unguided (neo)Darwinian evolution. An article by Miller responds to Behe's claim, with interesting diagrams. This section ends with a very insightful article by Van Inwagen on the compatibility of Darwin and design. There are also other articles in this section - as well as in others - which I haven't referred to.
So there's alot of material in Manson's book, and it's modern and comprehensive, covering some of the most important developments in many areas. (Some discussion of Plantinga's important argument against evolutionary naturalism would've been much appreciated, though maybe it is excluded since it isn't of an evidential scientific character, being more purely "philosophical" - not to imply that the rest of the material in the book doesn't involve keen, clear philosophical analysis and argument.) The arguments are also of different levels of sophistication- some sections are much more difficult than others. This anthology should, therefore, attract a large audience, from beginners to professional philosophers, physicists and biologists, who have an interest in the current debate.