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Rating: 
Summary: This is unfortunate and misleading.
Review: A previous reviewer asks why, since this book has been published, has no one refuted it? Look a little more. "Intelligent Design Creationism and It's Critics" includes reviews by some of the formost scientists in the world. Essentially, Behe's argument is the same as William Paley's and fails the same way. After 150 years, Darwin's idea has become solid fact. Over time the holes keep getting filled in with more knowledge but there will always be new details to understand. Arguing that the idea is wrong because you don't understand a detail is disingenous at best.
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Summary: This is unfortunate and misleading.
Review: As a student, I am currently taking a class with Dr. Stpehen C. Meyer. I was required to read this book for class. I found the arguments quite compelling, and in my study (both in class and personal) I have yet to find a strong rebuttal by those whom adovcate Darwinian Evolution. For those who are looking for an explaination as to the design in nature, this book will support those ideas and show how the universe at least "has the appearance of design"
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Summary: Forget the critics
Review: I have to give this book 5 stars to counter-balance the two reviews that slam this book. It is obvious that neither reviewer has read this book, in part or in total. Intelligent Design is not creation science. It accepts evolution (i.e., common descent), gradual change over time, and natural selection as a fine-tuning mechanicism of life. It merely suggests that the formation of life is guided by intelligence - the exact question of how that intelligence performed its work, or who that intelligence is, is left open. (It could be anything from aliens to Zeus.) Intelligent Design has caused Darwinian Fundamentalists to react with alarm because Darwinism is the central facet of their world view. Their objections are more philosophical than scientific (I've yet to read ONE negative review of an ID book that contains any science whatsoever). Darwinists have been the Grand Inquisitors of academia and are crushing real science. While Physics, Astronomy, Genetics, and other fields are literally taking quantum leaps into the future, evolutionary Biology has barely advanced past the early 1900s thanks to the the Fundamentalists' insistence that all evidence be construed, however obliquely, to support the notion that natural selection and random mutation can account for all life on earth. Read about ID and make up your mind. Don't listen to Fundamentalists like Ken Miller and Richard Dawkins who are long on rhetoric and short on science.
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Summary: Ignorant "reviews"
Review: I've never understood why someone like the usual anonymous "intellectual" coward that wrote "This is unfortunate and misleading", March 12, 2003 Reviewer: A reader, would subject themselves to ridicule for the obvious fact that they know nothing of what they are talking about.
This guy, and others like him, are accusing the authors of abandoning evolution, Darwinism, etc. He, and others like him, need to grow up academically, and come to understand what so many scientists and famous atheists and agnostics are coming to understand--the simple fact that intelligent design, be that God, or whomever,or whatever, does not eliminate evolution. They are not mutually exclusive!
What does it matter how the earth and life on it was organized. It was done in some way. NOTHING in Darwinism proves there was not intellligent design, or maybe even a creator. Almost no one in religion, except the extreme fundamentalist who tell everyone else they are going to Hell, disavows evolution. The Pope believes in evolution. BYU has a class in evolution that may even be required. Several Mormon scientists have written supporting evolution, and thousands of Protestant clergy and lay persons believe in evolution.
So, where have the authors of these ignorant reviews been hiding? What cave have they been living in? Evidence for ID is becoming increasingly acknowledged. I suggest they learn to live with it
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Summary: Forget the critics
Review: In this collection of articles by Dembski, Behe and Meyer, we see mainly a repetition of the same arguments we have seen many times before. In particular, Dembski repeats verbatim his previously published discourse, such as the description of his explanatory filter. At least nine times his theory has been severely criticized both in print and on the Internet but he seems to unperturbed by it and continues hammering into readers' heads the same discredited notions. Behe, on the other hand, offers some rebuttal to critique, but does it distorting the positions of his ctitics. For example, from Behe's article one may gain an impression that one of his critics, the prominent biologist prof. Doolittle, after having heard Behe's counter-arguments, agreed that his critique was wrong. Prof. Doolittle denies this (in a personal meassage to me). I hope prof. Doolittle will find time to reply to Behe's assertions. If Behe returned to a decent biochemical research rather than wasting time on poorly substantiated hypothesis of intelligent design, he might still do something useful. In a paper by Dembski and Meyer these writers offer an argument based on the abduction logic allegedly proving that the big bang theory implies a supernatural creator. ... .
Rating: 
Summary: Fanatics cannot see the obvious
Review: The obvious truths as exposed in the book cannot be denied by a true scientist who has developed the ability to look beyond his personal bias. One cannot read this book or similar ones without seeing the absurdity of the notion that there is no design behind an obviously designed product. In today's pseudo science one can pretend that books in a library talk to each other when no one is around to check on them and get away with it if he proposes a "natural" solution to the problem. A bias toward naturalism or materialism is not credible science anymore that a bias toward creationism is. Evidence, such as contained in this book, should lead where it will. If science is forbidden from seeing the obvious because it is not "natural" then it becomes nothing more than a gathering place for fanatics. I am the author of The Blind Atheist and I have debated materialists for years. I must agree that they are grasping at straws now. Their basis of naturalism is crumbling so they now resort to a pretention that evidence that points to Intelligent Design is not scientific. Well then, is it scientific to mislead the public into a materialistic solution when an intelligent one is indicated? Will books in a library really talk to each other given enough time, or do they simply contain the intelligent input of their creator? Will the laws of physics without intelligent input produce meaningful information given enough time? All of life is based on meaningful information. Time, the crutch of evolution, only obscures the problem and the obvious solution. But fanatics cannot see the obvious.
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Summary: Excellent essays
Review: This book is a compliation of three in-depth essays (first 113 pages) which study the possibility of intelligent design from a physics, mathematical and philosophical aspect. All three contributing authors (Michael Behe, William Dembski and Stephen Meyer) have their PhD's and speak with authority on the subject on hand. The remainder of the book (approximately an additional 80 pages) make up the appendix which supplies three additional essays which speak about Intelligent Design and answer specific criticisms against this theory. The first appendix, entitled Answering Scientific Criticisms of Intelligent Design, is written by Michael Behe, who received his PhD in biochemistry, and is possibly the best chapter of the entire book. It goes in-depth to answer criticisms leveled against the theory of Intelligent Design. Overall, the book is a great tool for aspiring Christian apologists who wish to discuss the topic of Intelligent Design with atheists. It is also a very good book for those who have problems with their faith and are looking for something a little more 'concrete' than faith alone. The book is extremely well written, it is heavy into the science so some background would help but is not essential. I would highly recommend this book to those who are interested in this subject.
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Summary: Thorough Examination of Supporting Points for ID
Review: This book, _Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe_, is a collection of six essays by three of the biggest names in intelligent design (ID): William Dembski (Ph.D. in mathematics and Ph.D. in philosophy), Stephen Meyer (Ph.D. in philosophy of science), and Michael Behe (Ph.D. in biochemistry). These three characters have been widely criticized by Darwinists, but very few of these critics have actually read their material, and virtually none of them have considered it.
The first essay, by William Dembski, is introductory, yet essential. This essay, "The Third Mode of Explanation," can be found in almost all of Dembski's work in some way, and for good reason: his explanatory filter, along with his stipulation of complex specified information (CSI), is needed to prevent ID from looking like William Paley's argument.
I've seen a hefty amount of criticism with regard to Dembski's explanatory filter and CSI, but the critiques have been hollow. Typically, critics simply fail to understand CSI. Of course, there may be an honest few who really don't understand it, but it looks to me as if the Darwinists simply reject CSI because they know it will sting them in the long run. Essentially, Paley's failure at using some standard for detecting design brought about his eventual downfall. In my opinion, however, Dembski's work succeeds precisely where Paley fell. Even so, I would recommend whomever is introduced to Dembski's work with the explanatory filter and CSI in this book to research his other works, mainly, _The Design Inference_ and _No Free Lunch_.
Next up is Stephen Meyer's "Evidence for Design in Physics and Biology." After finding how intelligence can be inferred, Dembski hands the book off to Meyer and Behe for a while in order to see if we can, in fact, find signs of intelligence.
On a side note, this is a main point where ID differs from things like scientific creationism (SC) and natural theology (NT); from what I can tell, both SC and NT presume that a designer does exist. However, ID searches for *signs* of intelligence to see if there is a creator. While SC may seek to affirm the biblical creation account, ID doesn't care most about how we were created; ID only seeks to find out if certain things in nature are designed. Likewise, while NT desires to determine the attributes of a designer, ID leaves that up to theology, not science. No matter what ID critics tell you, these proponents are NOT six-day (young-earth) creationists.
Back to Meyer. This lengthy (60-page) essay is very in-depth and is extremely informative. He focuses one part on the anthropic fine-tuning principle, which tries to show that since "the constants in physics, the initial conditions of the universe, and many other of its features appear delicately balanced to allow for the possibility of life" (56-57), then the universe must have been designed, since the probability of life is outrageously low. I've found this argument quite convincing, but the reader should determine this on his/her own, not from the words of myself or of any other reviewer -- especially not from the critics who refuse to consider evidence that goes against their a priori ideologies.
Meyer spends more time, however, on the mystery of the origin of DNA. In my opinion, this is stronger than the anthropic fine-tuning principle, since Meyer analyzes many of the objections to the design of DNA and systematically dismantles them. Again, the reader should form his/her own opinion on this. Note: this origin of DNA problem is precisely what convinced renowned atheist philosopher Antony Flew to believe in some supernatural designer.
Next comes one of Behe's essays, namely, "Evidence for Design at the Foundation of Life." While this is short, it outlines much of what Behe has been known for: the presence of irreducible complexity (IC) in biochemistry. Again, Behe's ability to rely on a standard for determining design has kept the argument from dying Paley's death. Critics, like Mark Perakh who reviewed here, might dismiss Behe quickly, but notice how quick they are to flock to Ken Miller's or Richard Dawkins' side. It seems as if Darwinists have been guilty of apriorism much more than Charles Darwin would have preferred.
Behe follows this brief, but thorough, examination of a couple biochemical structures, namely, the cilium and the bacterial flagellum, with a chapter dedicated to dealing with criticism of his work. He deals with a technical objection brought about by Ken Miller, while also speaking of the issues of blood clotting and falsifiability. This is brief again, and may require further study elsewhere. I would recommend _Darwin's Black Box_ by Behe to find an elaboration of much of his work on IC.
One last note on Behe: the most common objection to his work is the claim that he is arguing from ignorance. Essentially, the critics say that Behe can't say that something is designed because he hasn't found an alternative. However, this is not what Behe has claimed.
Behe has three points with irreducible complexity. Firstly, the logical point is that direct Darwinian pathways cannot be relied upon for the genesis of IC; something that relies on random mutations is not a reasonable explanation for IC. For instance, it is possible that wind and erosion created Mount Rushmore, but it's extremely far from probable. Secondly, the empirical point is that indirect Darwinian pathways cannot be relied upon for the IC, since we have not found even one example of an indirect Darwinian pathway. It is simply wishful speculation. Thirdly, the explanatory point is that since we know that design is what creates IC, then some designer had something to do with irreducibly complex systems found in biochemistry. In other words, Behe relies on the causal adequacy of inferring design. This is not an argument from ignorance; this is eliminative induction, as Dembski shows in much of his work. Note: For an easy way to find answers to many questions posed on ID, see _The Design Revolution_ by Dembski.
Moving on, Meyer has another amazingly important article based on establishing the "Methodological Equivalence of Naturalistic and Non-Naturalistic Origins Theories." This essay is just as long as the first Meyer essay, and just as thorough. What's more, this is important to show that ID cannot be thrown out of science if Darwinism is expected to remain in science. It's either none or both, as Meyer argues, and the day Darwinists agree to throw out their theory will be the day Los Angeles votes Republican.
Finally, the book finishes with short essay by both Meyer and Dembski. As opposed to what Mark Perakh has declared, this essay simply shows that the Christian doctrine of divine Creation may be the most causally adequate explanation of the Big Bang. It is not proving that the Big Bang implies a supernatural creator, as Perakh suggests; the authors merely assert that it is the best explanation given the knowledge we have and the opposing, naturalist possibilities.
Overall, this book is a must-read for those who are seriously curious about some of the arguments presented by Dembski, Meyer, and Behe. Also, if you are interested in an elaboration on the DNA issue and the methodological equivalence of ID and Darwinism, then this a great place to find it. (Meyer's work amounts to about half of the book). Additionally, if one is looking for introductory material for Dembski's and/or Behe's arguments, then this is also a wonderful starting point. This book may not have the subject diversity of anthologies like _Signs of Intelligence_ or _Mere Creation_, but it still powerfully and cogently explains a couple of ID's supporting points.
Note: Only read this if you are willing to say that you are wrong if you find enough evidence that refutes your current positions.
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