Rating: 
Summary: Start at the beginning
Review: There are some technical terms which I needed to be informed about, so I couldn't skip around in this book as much as I expected to. The logic is as good at the beginning of the book as anywhere, with Milton and a few major philosophers showing up by page 14. Taking "For the eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant, our innate moral sense is sufficient to prove the existence of God," (p. 14) as a starting point which will never be refuted, the scientific theory of evolution can still be seen metaphysically as an attempt to answer a question about the extent of God's nature and power.On a very basic level, Darwin was able to make more sense out of the natural world, as it exists, by trying to understand a longer history than religion could provide for 7 days and 6,000 years. This book, DARWIN'S GOD by Cornelius G. Hunter, on evolution and the problem of evil, tries to make theodicy, ("Darwin's theory of evolution was very much a solution to the problem of evil," p. 16) a metaphysics of a God who had been gone much longer than that, because "Darwin's gritty and chaotic world--the real world seen up close by naturalists--implied no such Creator. Creation was irrational, and therefore there was no such benevolent Creator, or at least not one who attended to details." (p. 17). Though opposition to Darwin is often seen as religious, for me it makes more sense to see it as political, like the political opposition with which complacency maintains its sentimental opposition to anarchy. One reason the American war in Vietnam lasted as long as it did was that the anti-war message was always more unpopular than the war itself. Radicals voicing outright opposition to American military policies represented a challenge to American status as a superpower in a way similar to the belief that God's power to reward every victor in any form of fight should not be called into question. Outrageous opinions of anarchists about pitiful, helpless giants who ought to bug out are found to be offensive, much as the grief of U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone's supporters at the time of his death was greatly increased by the lack of a popular alternative to militarism, and the unfortunate display of that grief as a political attack on those who considered themselves the equal of Paul Wellstone as U.S. Senators, but who might as well have been the antiChrist for those who don't like the way in which they use power to rule over their political enemies at home and abroad, hurt a few feelings. Theologically, "After the sixteenth century, modernism had tended to view God as removed from creation, but Darwin was now increasing this separation to the point that the link between creation and God was severed." (p. 17). But his ideas didn't actually prove the point. "The theory of evolution is true not because species obviously evolved from each other but because of the failure to reconcile God and nature." (p. 47). "The evolutionist's notion of God and divine creation is, for many people, just a straw man--an overly simplified metaphysic that conveniently supports their views." (p. 49). Anarchy as an ideal might also be considered an overly simplified metaphysic that conveniently supports the views of those who would be better off if they were not constantly being attacked by people that they do not consider anarchists. Politically, every stretch seems to come out of nowhere. Modernity has arrived like the " `Cambrian Explosion,' the most spectacular of biology's big bangs. Estimated to have taken place almost 600 million years ago over a period no greater than five million years, it initiated virtually all the major designs of multicellular life with barely a trace of evolutionary history. In a geological moment, the fossil species went from small worm-like creatures and the like to a tremendous diversity of complex life forms, including all of today's modern designs." (p. 69). It might have happened from holes in the ozone layer and an excess of carbon dioxide, for all we will ever know. "Geneticist Steve Jones wonders if the Cambrian Explosion reflects some crucial change in DNA," (p. 70) which sounds more scientific than political to me. A fossil record begins with simple bacteria, "almost four billion years ago." (p. 71). "Modern thinkers as disparate as John Wesley and Thomas Jefferson had agreed that their good God never would have allowed species to become extinct." (p. 81). A book by Kenneth R. Miller written shortly before this one, and still more popular, called FINDING DARWIN'S GOD previously stated, "Nothing he designs is able to make it over the long term." (p. 82). The ideal of an eternal existence is crumbling as our knowledge of everything increases. Talking about the metaphysics of all this hardly makes anarchy as feasible as it is likely.
Rating: 
Summary: auto-deconstruct
Review: This book could be described as a type of deconstruction of Darwinism -laying bare its motivations and influences; showing that the privileged metaphysics inherent in much of Darwinist literature is in conflict with their many claims of doing [w]holy objective science. Darwinism, while claiming to be Objective science, contains its own otherness, i.e., Metaphysics. It should be noted that this book does not try and advance a narrative (scientific or otherwise) about life's development. Claims that the explanation or position of this book explains everything and hence nothing is misguided. Rather the argument, as I understood it, was that what has made (and is still making) Darwinism undeniably convincing is the underlying reliance on dysteleology -- the claim that nature, in many ways, exhibits quite a bit of evil, which is apparently unworthy or incompatible with a powerful and good creator. It is this metaphysical view that is so convincing for Darwinists not the actual scientific evidence separated from this metaphysical underpinning. There is an interesting question raised in the book about the nature of evidence or what counts as positive evidence for a theory. Mr. Hunter shows in his book that evidence can be given for nearly any theory (a quick look into the history of science should be enough to make this claim obviously true - all those overturned theories did have evidence; enough to make their supporters fairly confident anyway). Another way of showing that the link between evidence and theory is not understood very well (even by us moderns interested in the philosophy of science) can be shown form the hypothesis 'All ravens are black'. Of course the finding of a black raven is evidence for this hypothesis, but then so must the finding of a green hat or a yellow shoe -- logic dictates that all As are Bs if and only if all non-Bs are non-As. So, all ravens are black if and only if all non-Black things are non-Ravens, which makes the green hat and yellow shoe evidence for the hypothesis 'All ravens are black'. Simply put, nobody understands the relationship between evidence and theory very well. Anyway, if someone wants to show how the link between evidence and theory works they will have to do better then vague suggestions about close analysis, predictive value, and observations. ...
Rating:
Summary: Exposes evolution for it what it really is
Review: This book shows that evolution really is based on metaphysical assumptions but is guised as a scientific theory. When one's particular view of God is not revealed in nature than evolution must be the explanation. Since God would not create homologous beings, parasites or flightless birds natural laws must have done it somehow. The 'evidence' for evolution is based on these kinds of biases about God. But when we look at theory it is really not testable nor predictable. As long as anyone can thing of how a particular complex organ could have evolved over a long series of intermediattes than evolution is safe. But how can this be tested? How can we test that a rodent could evolve flght over a long series of intermidattes and survive to eventually become a bat? If it happened shouldn't we find these intermediattes in the fossil record? If not then why isn't theory in trouble? Why do only observe small scale change in stable species rather than animals gradually evolving new organs or different body plans. Wouldn't we expect to see this if evolution really is true to account for the incredible diversity in nature? Some negative reviewers of this book are asking then what did God do? They seem to missed the point of this book? If evolution wants to be called science it needs to demonstrate that it can do what people claim it does. What God would or wouldn't do cannot be used as evidence for evolution because then evolution becomes unscientific.
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