Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't answer how spontaneous emergence emerges
Review: Enjoyable reading. Fine and creative arguments for Design- Unintelligence having dominance. But doesn't answer the key issues of Design-Intelligence: who or what impulse was the origin and catalyst for emergence of Design-Unintelligence? Who or what kept providing the propulsion (engine & fuel) to maintain this Perpetual Motion Selectio-mechanism machine called evolution by natural selection?
Design-Intelligence answers these key issues with evidence that is persuading more and more scientists and non-scientists. Until Design-Unintelligence can grapple with these key issues, Intelligence wins out over Unintelligence, no matter how rigorous the detailed arguments and data engagement.
Rating: 
Summary: Superb
Review: Excellent, thorough, and completely convincing point-by-point demolition of the physics-related errors, confusions, and deceptions practiced by certain people who pretend their medieval phantasies supersede scientific observations of the real world.
Rating:
Summary: An intelligent and informative book
Review: I have gained from this book a lot of information about the present situation in the ongoing dispute between the adherents of Intelligent Design and their opponents. Among the useful bits of information was the reference to the Talk Reason website, of which I did not know. I found on that site a wealth of serious articles discussing in depth many aspects of the modern creationism. Learning about this site was a good enough reason to believe the money paid for the book was well spent. In addition, the book itself provides fascinating reading in various respects. The author pounces on Intelligent Design proponents as well as on the writers who are at work reconciling the Bible story with science, and he does so quite forcefully. However, his attack largely avoids ad hominem elements but is consistently about the essence of the dispute. His arguments are well thought out. Overall, I am confident the book deserves its five stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Details still point unequivocally to Intelligent Design
Review: I have no answer as a non-scientist to the author's attempts at refuting the fine points of Intelligent Design proponents. It is quite possible for evolutionists to win arguments with some of the details at the micro level, like ingredients in a mixing bowl that are baked into the cake. They try to divine the reason for apparent-not-actual-design, physics and mechanism of how the cake got baked, what the ingredients must have done to arrange themselves so cleverly and tastily, what probabilities were involved for random mutations to develop order and organic organization, etc. But, they are left with speculating about some Recipe that was not intelligently developed. It just happened to emerge of its own accord, along with the necessary ingredients, in the right proportions, measurements and temperatures to Voila'! bake in a bakery (evolution process) without a baker (Master Chef).
The arguments for absence of intelligence as solely responsible for our primordial emergence only goes to show where the absence of intelligence really lies. And it's not with Intelligent Design proponents.
Rating:
Summary: A real contribution
Review: I think it is a fine book. It is thorough and the author's views are supported by good arguments. I wish Perakh paid more attention to the evolution - creation controversy, but we can't expect a book to cover all aspects of the problem. He says early in the book that he is not a biologist and therefore will not delve into the intricate details of biology-related disputes. However, he skillfully turns to his ken in physics and mathematics (specifically in information theory and probability theory) to penetrate into the underlying essence of the arguments of those he chose for critique. One of the attractive features of this book is that its author not only performs surgery aimed at revealing faults in ID and biblical apologetics, he also usually explains the concepts essential for understanding his thesis in an easily comprehensible form. This makes his book something more than simply a critical analysis of unsubstantiated notions, but also a kind of teaching guide on many aspects of information and probability theories as well as on a number of other subjects.
Rating:
Summary: Transparent, convincing and entertaining.
Review: I was intrigued by the title of that book, which seemed to indicate that its author would concentrate on the problem of suboptimal design. However, as I started reading I soon realized that it is much more than I expected. Dr. Perakh capitalized on his background as a physicist to debunk a whole series of popular neo-apologetic books, written both from Christian and Judaic standpoints. His analysis of errors in the books by Ross, Schroeder, Aviezer, Heeren and others is not only very transparent but also entertaining. Highly recommended to anybody interested in the controversy that has arisen recently because of the advent of the Intelligent Design movement and its Wedge echelon. Five stars!
Rating:
Summary: My impression
Review: I wish Amazon's classification had more than 5 stars so I could choose an even higher mark. The need for such a book is long overdue. Perakh is a scientist with many years of research and publications behind him and is eminently qualified to provide a lucid and well substantiated analysis of the Intelligent Design conceptual system as well as of the lower tier of creationist literature. His dissection of Dembski's prolific output is detailed, very logical, and highly convincing. While Perakh devotes less space to the critique of Behe and Johnson, he succeeds in dismantling the arguments of these two principal proponents of Intelligent Design by pinpointing the most vulnerable elements in their discourse. Perhaps a torrent of abusive vituperation in regard to Perakh's book can now be expected from the fellows of the Discovery Institute and their cohorts. Any unbiased reader must, however, admit the force of Perakh's analysis
Rating:
Summary: Sure value!
Review: I've been living with this book for two weeks now. Complex? Well, aside from the critical nature of much of the book, there is also a fair amount of beautiful examples. Self-serving? Yes! But interesting and enlightening, as well, putting the ball pretty solidly in the court of Perakh critics.
There are gracious moments as well: his treatment of creation theory is generally pretty open-minded, as is his parting exhortation to the budding field of contemporary philosophy. If you are interested in this field, this is a book you ought to peruse extensively.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth the effort
Review: I've been reading about the creationism/evolution debate for twenty years now, and this book is an extremely important addition to that discussion. Perakh has two basic points as he works his way through the major advocates of ID (Intelligent Design). One is that they misuse statistics is ways that are intuitively reasonable but ultimately incorrect. This is why he includes a discussion of the Bible Code, another case of statistics gone awry.
His second point, and one that I hadn't seen spelled out so well before, is that the idea of irreducible complexity is a jumbled compilation of observations which Paley and others have offered much more clearly long ago. Perakh breaks down each component of irreducible complexity and shows how it does not justify the strong claims made for it by ID theorists.
My frustration in all of this is that the people who most need to read this book aren't going to take the time and effort necessary to engage in his arguments.
Rating:
Summary: A very good book unjustly repudiated
Review: Interesting things seem to occur on Amazon site. Here is one example. On December 22, 2003, a review of Perakh's book was posted here signed by a reader from Waco, TX. As another reader, Jacqueline Caussel from Montreal, Canada, indicated in her review, Waco is that town where Baylor university is located. William Dembski whose work was strongly critisized in Perakh's book, works at Baylor, so the extremely negative tone of the review from Waco could have been explained by its being written by one of the objects of Perakh's critique. Then suddenly the signature under the negative review mysteriously changed - now it is not a reader from Waco anymore but a reader from Riesel, TX. Otrherwise, it is exactly the same review which pounces not so much on Perakh's book as on Prometheus Books publishers. I am curious, how Waco has become Riesel? Was this change designed to make Caussel's review incomprehensible as it refers to a review from Waco which is not found any more on Amazon? Riesel is though not far from Waco and perhaps it is where the reader from Waco in fact resides? As to Perakh's book, it fully deserves 5 stars given to it by 19 readers who all signed their reviews unlike Perakh's detractors who usually hide their names. Perakh's book offers a well balanced and well substantiated (but quite disapproving) analysis of the work by such ID advocates as Dembski, Behe, Johnson and others so it is not suprising that the adherents of the ID pseudo-science try to misrepresent Perakh's book. Their critique lacks arguments though. Indeed, the reader from Riesel (or is it from Waco?) instead of offering a single argument against Perakh's devastating critique, talks about Perakh's publisher, Prometheus Books. Even if Prometheus were so bad as the reader from Riesel (or from Waco?) says (which it is definitely not) what does it have to do with Perakh's arguments? It is obvious that the ID advocate from Riesel (or Waco?) can say nothing to counter Perakh's critique so, in the usual manner of the ID crowd, he talks instead about irrelevant matters trying to obfuscate the issue. It is hard to conclude anything but that Perakh is right.
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