Rating: 
Summary: Rich...Absorbing...Penetrating..Lucid..Compelling..Essential
Review: Just today I've completed Professor Phillip E. Johnson's latest book, "The Wedge of Truth". It is without a doubt the most insightful, persuasive work I've read in five years. Pay close attention to the important, probing questions asked by professor Johnson that the contemporary Darwinian elite are afraid to tackle. And why are they afraid to give an answer? It is becoming increasingly apparent that an honest response will expose their presuppositions as nothing but fracturing dogmatism. And why is contemporary Darwinism a fracturing paradigm? Because when these same scientific naturalists do attempt to make a response to this sharp UC Berkeley professor, pay even closer attention to what they say in their obvious fumbling. Do they provide answers to his questions? Do they answer with well-reasoned lucidity or do they spit out ad hominum attacks at those who don't buy into their philosophy? Decide for yourself!!! I was surprised to find a great deal of intellectual dishonesty, as this elite always substitutes dogmatic "spin" for a complete lack of a proper answer. It is appalling and intellectually insulting to me that the scientific academic community expects us to digest this notion that cyclical variation within a stable species warrants a mechanism of creating plants and animals--especially when these scientists are at such a loss to answer the tough questions that challenge it. You can't defend science by ruling important issues off the table! Who is willing to blindly place his or her faith in anything lacking solid evidence? Oddly enough, (thanks to this eye-opening book), it is becoming increasingly apparent that those walking around in the dark are the ones who blindly cling to Darwinism. After reading this book, I ask those who are firmly entrenched in the Darwinist camp , "Can you answer Professor Johnson's legitimate questions that gravely challenge your theory?" If you expect me to buy into this concept that has made little (if any) progress in the last 150 years, then you had better be prepared to defend your position. I mean, isn't this what the scientific method is all about? The axe has already struck the dead wood. Unless these dogmatists can somehow scrape up even a few well reasoned answers, it is only a matter of time before the thin edge of the wedge completely splits the Darwinian paradigm apart. Don't miss reading this book--you will find it revolutionary! It is so good that I have purchased 2 more copies as gifts to friends. I see it as one of the most important works of our time.
Rating: 
Summary: Misses the point entirely.
Review: Like the existence of nuclear weaponry, our chief difficulty with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is unfortunately NOT that it isn't true, but rather that it IS true, and we don't know how to deal ethically with its consequences. These include our new ability to influence--and even sidestep--evolutionary change on a scale never before imagined. Pulling the blanket up over our eyes and pretending that the problem isn't there is not the answer. Sadly, the chief message of this misguided book is that it's okay for us to ignore the truth that is barrelling down upon us like a runaway freight train. God help us all. We're going to need it.
Rating:
Summary: The Emperor has no Clothes
Review: Many people ask why Johnson, a lawyer, is writing about a topic as inherently scientific as evolution and the origin of life. If you think about it, however, it makes perfect sense. First, lawyers are presented every day with seemingly complex problems, wrapped in layers and layers of BS, confusion, and deliberate obfuscation. Part of their job is to cut through the BS and snow jobs, and dig out the essence of the problem. Johnson does this with consummate skill. More than one scientist of the caliber of Richard Dawkins, used to drawing reverence and awe from all around him, has learned to his dismay that Johnson is neither easily awed nor easily snowed. His snow-job filter is working just fine, thank you. The only thing that moves him is an argument that resonates with reason and common sense. The current situation in this debate is ironic in the extreme. Science attained its triumph over myth, superstition, and old wive's tales by virtue of the systematic, rational, impersonal method called the scientific method (introduced, it helps to remember, by a devout Christian and theologian). But the people who attack and argue with Johnson are practicing anything but good science; they resort to smoke and mirrors, shrill ad hominems, and obstructionism. If "evolution is fact," as the Naturalists are so quick to claim, why are they so afraid to have it examined under the cold, impersonal light of reason? It's because they know, as Johnson sees so clearly, that it cannot stand up under close scrutiny. This is the Galileo story all over again, except this time it's people like Johnson who are trying to tell the world the truth. It's the scientific orthodoxy, like the Doges of Galileo's day, who are resorting to threats, pressures and name-calling in a frantic attempt to silence him. Students of history should know that Truth will eventually prevail.
Rating:
Summary: The Darwinists have some 'splainin to do
Review: One of the best books I've read in years. Johnson shows the assumptions of the Darwinian to be questionable at best and knowingly fraudulant at worst. Johnson - whom I have not read before- demonstrates the absurdity of the "scientific community" extrapolating grand claims from paultry evidence and then stating their "conclusions" are beyond question. What arrogance and self-delusion! I personally used to think that Darwinism was probably true but now I am much more skeptical of any such assertion. The problems with the theory are MUCH more serious than I ever imagined -- in fact they are probably FATAL to the theory. A GREAT BOOK! I owe Johnson a debt of graditude.
Rating:
Summary: Subverting the Dominant Paradigm
Review: Phil Johnson's newest book is witty, incredibly insightful, and to the point. In less than two hundred pages, Johnson puts forth a devestating critique of modern materialist science and knowledge while putting forth his own models of each based on empirical investigation and the acknowledgement of personality and information as more fundemental than matter. Johnson points out that as long as chance and law are the only explanations allowed by the scientific elite as answers to the problem of the origin of genetic information, science will continue to spin its wheels in the mud and spin out more hollow just-so stories of how "evolution done it". Only when scientists recognize that complex, specified information is the hallmark of intelligent activity will the life sciences make real progress toward true explanations. A great read for the open minded.
Rating:
Summary: Very Worthwhile
Review: Philip Johnson shows himself to be a fair and thoughtful author. He takes the critcisms of Darwinists in stride while having the class to not return the personal attacks. Instead he stays on-subject. Darwinists have much to be concerned about. Mr. Johnson presents the facts that may topple the "monopoly of thought" that they so jealously guard.
Rating:
Summary: A kind and gentle criticism of Darwinism
Review: Phillip Johnson critiques Darwinism and its logical and scientific weaknesses without poking fun at or descending to ad hominem attack on the believers in that particular faith. This is an excellent and prophetic work that believers in grand-scale evolution should read carefully or they will be surprised a few years hence.
Rating:
Summary: Not to be Ignored
Review: Phillip Johnson has a rare combination of talents. He is capable of cutting to the core of issues, analyzing them, organizing his presentation, and then writing clearly enough for almost anyone to understand. In this book he has examined the naturalistic paradigm from several different angles. If the naturalists in science want to know where the Intelligent Design movement is headed, this is a book that should be read by them. For those who are interested in what the Intelligent Design movement is doing, this book explains it clearly. And for those who are backing the Intelligent Design movement, this book brings the arguments and observations up to date. Whether or not the reader agrees with Johnson, one will come away from each chapter thinking, and that is not a bad thing.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: Phillip Johnson is not a scientist, and does frankly not know what he is talking about. I mean that in the most literal way. He completely misunderstands fundamental concepts, and then attacks based on those, or states flatly that certain things are true, when they are not, at least not the way he means them. I am not an atheist, just for all you born-agains out there. I am an evangelical Christian too, but fair is fair, and Christianity is not opposed to evolution in the way that Johnson makes it sound. He takes examples of scientists overstepping their bounds, or being dishonest, and uses them as the archetype of what he is talking about. He does not address the legitimate points of the evolutionsts who are being fair and reasonable; apparentlly he wants more to vent about the others than to engage people in a mutual discovery of truth.
Rating:
Summary: On the money
Review: Phillip Johnson's best book yet -- the one I'd been waiting for. In this book he deals more with the philosophical issues and Christianity's response to those issues. What is science? A search for TRUTH, at all costs? Or is it instrinsically bound to naturalism, a belief system? Why do evolutionists need to defend their beliefs by resorting to obfuscation and cheap propaganda? Answers to these questions, and more, await you. This is a must-read book for anyone concerned about a philosophical movement which has had enormous negative consequences in recent history and promises worse to come; a movement dominating our culture today with little real criticism. Johnson offers the criticism, and begs for more. He also brings up what is becoming the key scientific issue (real science!): can the mechanism Darwinism describes actually create information from raw, inanimate materials (e.g., create cells with DNA and the ability to reproduce, which are necessary for natural selection even to start)? When I was an undergrad, folks had bumper stickers that said things like "Challenge authority." It's high time we challenged the cultural "authority" of evolutionism and its negative view of the value of human life. This book is an extension of the lead article in Touchstone magazine's double issue last summer on evolutionism (July/Aug 1999). Most of the other authors in that issue have books (Dembski, Behe, etc.) well worth reading.
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