Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism

Rating:
Summary: Why intelligent design doesn't fail, this book does
Review: 3 stars for a well-argued array of essays that have found legitimate beefs with some of the detail supporting ID. Obviously much more refining needs to be done by Dembski, Behe, Johnson, et al to more effectively 'shore up the science'. But that hardly demonstrates ID as 'invalid' as this book attempts.
This book serves the useful purpose of helping IDers do their homework better in developing their legitimate critiques of evolutionary theory as the only way for the universe to go.
It obviously is not. This is shown by Dawkins' latest book Ancestor's Tale. It simply allows too many gaps and unexplainable leaps for evolution to get off the ground, let alone stay there long.
Why does this book, despite some success at the detail level, fail as a whole in debunking ID? Evolutionists continue to tacitly if not outright acknowledge the "apparent design" of life and its surrounding systems, but their whole enterprise is to try and demonstrate why it's only "apparent" not genuine, or accept things as designed but counterintuitively show that it's source is non-intelligent, simply naturally processed like through a pre-existing bakery without a baker. On the other hand, Creationists can understand how, due to microadaptation within species and the development of, e.g., 'dogkinds' developing everything from hyena to dingo to wolf to fox to coyote to great dane to chihuahua within Genesis parameters of reproduction according to fixed kinds, there is an "apparent evolution" going on. But what ID fails to see, despite all the experiments on guppies, fruit flies, snails, bacteria, viruses, Darwin's finches,etc. is Macroevolution across-the-kinds. Creatures remain in their categories without genetic transit. After extensive testing, we are undeniably left with guppy, fly, snail, bacterium, virus, finches with no cross-over or escalative graduation at all. The finch beaks may be slightly varied, but they aren't migrating to horns on the head or altering finches into "non-finchness" or "beyond-birdness" lifeforms. Why Darwinists can't see this baffles Creationists! All the anti-ID equations, essays or explanations don't change that fundamental observable fact. That's why anti-ID fails even if ID needs fine-tuning in some of its anti-evolution details. Thanks to this book for providing just that. But if the authors presume to know "Why ID fails", they have sorely underestimated the strengths of ID at the macro level and minimized the weaknesses of their own data gaps, which are especially prominent in Ancestor's Tale, which is recommended reading along with this book for a fuller panorama of the issue.

Rating:
Summary: Former evolutionist rejects spontaneous emergence
Review: A friend dared me to read 3 anti-ID books to see if I could be brought back to Darwin's fold: Blind Watchmaker-Dawkins, Unintelligent Design-Perakh, this one.

Results? Truly enjoyable reading. Lots of detailed engagement with many levels of data. But in the end, neither was able to dissuade me from Intelligent Design as most probable and cogent explanation for emergence of life. The evidence presented by all these reputable scientists only added up to INTELLIGENCE in our biosystems. Built in. Non-randomicity. Symmetricality. Sequentiality. Directionality. Cumulativity. Convergency. Contingency. Dependency. Cooperativity. Relationality. Fine-tunability. Specificity. Complexity. Necessity. Consciousness. Conservationality. Reproductivity. Information gathering/storage/retrieval toward purposeful ends. Not just Survival, but Dominance of successful speciation, individually and populationally. Ad Lib Adaptability. Artistry,Elegance, Ingenuity, Beauty. Preservability. Transferability. Replicationality. Wonder-inducing. What once was worshiped by pagans as animal idolatry -either Zodiac beasts or zoologic ones- is now by evolution reduced to 'a matter of course' and no cause for religious sentiment whatsoever.

You would think with all 3 books in a row, something one of these creditable experts had to argue would trigger an "Aha! Darwin must be right" moment of epiphany. But, not to be. No amount of naturalistic scientific methodic discourse, analysis and rationalisation can explain spontaneous, coincidental emergence of brain-wave and EKG from nought. It's all very well to speculate about the supposed mechanics of a pre-existing mechanism called natural selection, how wings or eyes or tastebuds or immune systems arose from gradual accumulation of very minute mutations or tissue migrations or adaptations from one offspring to the next. But not even knowing the origin or any details for on/off switching process of Embryonics, for example, or how random mutations are converted/assimilated time after time after time into non-random improvements of bodyplans and genetic recipes is quite a lacuna to be overcome without resort to at least considering the probability of Intelligence.

Evolution is devolving. It's opposite is on the rise, even in the scientific community. That is telling in itself, otherwise books like Dawkins', Perakh's and this one would be rendered unnecessary. Intelligent Designism is selected for distinction. Unintelligent Designism is deselected for extinction. Given enough time, of course.

Rating:
Summary: Why Intelligent Design Succeeds
Review: Although I believe that life is designed by intelligence, or something greater, I am a long time critic of Intelligent Design (ID) in its charade of being an alternative to biological evolution. I have read many articles by nearly all of the contributing authors, so I hesitated buying this book. Nevertheless, I decided to evaluate it as a resource for those who are relatively new to the debate.

While there are other books that discuss the evolution and tactics of the ID strategy, WIDF targets the "scientific" arguments made by William Dembski, Michael Behe, and others, particularly the ones that invoke irreducible and/or specified complexity as criteria for inferring design. Paul Nelson's "Dynamic Creation Model" is singled out as a typical ID position, although other IDers, such as Behe, have radically different models in mind. In fact, ID's "official" position is that it takes no position beyond "evidence of design," and that it invalidates evolution. The authors address different ID claims, and take different approaches, so that even if one does not agree with everything each author says, the overall case against the ID strategy remains overwhelming.

Although the authors could have better emphasized the false dichotomy of "it's either `naturalistic' evolution or `something else' by design," at least one author (Edis) did note that, even if there were some substance to the IDers' design claims, the biological process would still be evolution. Those new to the debate need to fully appreciate how ID misrepresents science, and despite its "common ancestry" with creationism (see Robert Pennock's "Tower of Babel"), is in fact a virtual admission that all of the mutually contradictory (see Kenneth Miller's "Finding Darwin's God") creationist origins models are scientific failures. So I recommend WIDF, but not as the only critique of ID that one should read.

Like the other two books I mentioned, WIDF often reads like a criticism of design in the general sense. While that may be a personal desire of some of the authors, it is certainly not the overall intent of the book, or of the other two books, which are written by authors who believe not only that a designer exists, but that He is indeed God. Of course, that will never be enough to please the negative reviewers who insist that any critique of ID or creationism is necessarily an attack on God.

Because of my minor complaints above, I considered rating WIDF 4 stars, but the book's impressive list of references, including web sites, and with a good balance of pro- and anti-ID, makes it a valuable resource, so 5 stars it is. A nitpick of the title, though: Because of its limited scope, WIDF does not address the main reasons that ID has failed to impress mainstream science or mainstream religion, i.e. the tactics (define terms to suit one's argument, quote out of context, etc.) that make it pure pseudoscience. Alas, like many pseudosciences, ID is a success with the general public because it tells people what they want to hear - in ways the classic creationisms cannot.


Rating:
Summary: This is a very painful book
Review: Apparently, that is.
To proponents of ID.
I am not being facetious here. It does hurt to read a book where a number of essays carefully take apart, if not demolish outright, your worldview.
However.
That is not a justification to engaged in behavior that is demonstrably un-Christian and which, frankly, only serves to prove that the authors are basically correct.

What, if I may aske, is the POINT of writing reviews which say nothing at all about the actual book that's supposed to be discussed here, but instead a whole lot about the reviewer's inability to talk about ideas they happen to disagree with rationally?
What is the point of unhelpful-clicking every review you disagree with?

The point is that this book contains a lot of valid and, dare I say it, dispassionate criticism of the ID proponents' arguments. Ignoring them won't make them go away, and all that sort of childish behavior does is to tell the world that, far from being a valid scientific idea, ID really can't succeed on the merit of its argument.
Inother words, by doing that, you prove this book's point.
If that's what you want, go right ahead.

Rating:
Summary: "Has the jury reached a verdict?"
Review: Indeed it has. The verdict is "Guilty!" The notion of Intelligent Design, which has been deemed neither "intelligent" nor a "design", has proven another flawed attempt to dispose of evolution by natural selection. In this essay collection, a jury of "twelve good men" [why are there no women authors here?], analyse the ideas of the major spokesmen [again!] of the ID movement. The writings of William Dembski, Michael Behe and others are closely scrutinised in terms of logic and science - and are found severely wanting. Christian "creationism" [for ID is merely "creationism under a new cognomen] wears many faces. The editors of this collection accept that the "new wave" of creationism has cast off "biblical literalism", to grant ID the rank of a "philosophy". It is the question of ID's self-proclaimed "scientific base" the essays examine closely.

This is hardly a new exercise. Many authors have addressed the validity of ID, but the precision and expertise brought to bear by this group makes this collection unique. The various essayists dispassionately examine the ID contentions. Wisely avoiding the politics and polemics of the ID movement, the authors each consider elements on their merits. ID is considered here in its "scientific" and mathematical claims alone. Can "scientific creationism", an alias accepted by many ID adherents, be a valid approach to biology?

The editors note that after fitful beginnings, ID surged to public awareness with Michael Behe's 1996 book. Behe, who is a master at self-touting, claims his ideas should be "ranked as one of the greatest achievements in the history of science". However, the invitation to Stockholm has been noticeably missing. Behe's contentions have been refuted so many times by so many people, it seems redundant to review them here. His argument that certain features of life, flagellum, "the" eye and other mechanisms are "irreducibly complex" - take away one [of three!] part and the system fails. His unfortunate use of the mousetrap as a metaphor has resulted in some hilarious countering designs, the best of which remains Michael Ruse's single bent wire version. Far more significant, is Behe's expressed ignorance of evolutionary processes. As Matt Young and David Ussery point out in their respective essays, not only is the metaphor fallacious, Behe's use of the flagellum is a faulted example. Many of the components of the flagellum exist in certain microorganisms, busily doing other jobs. Behe simply overlooked what else the parts of his mousetrap might be good for. Ian Musgrave's account of the evolution of the bacterial flagellum is one of the more notable essays here.

Following Behe, the jury ponders the works of William Dembski. Dembski is the acknowledged "philosopher" of the ID movement. He's welcome to the title. Dembski's convoluted notions about the cosmos and life use arcane mathematical structures to "prove" "chance" cannot have generated either the universe nor life. Several essayists in "Why Intelligent Design Fails examine his contentions carefully. Dembski has argued for, but never presented evidence supporting, a "design inference". Taner Edis, Mark Perakh and Gary Hurd's essays address this and other pronouncements of Dembski's in detail. In brief, all of this "philosopher's" theses fail tests of logic and show no scientific foundation.

The nature of the subjects investigated in this collection and the scientific tests the authors apply, make this book a less than rapid read. The various authors must present the ID theses as best they can. Many of those notions beggar clear presentation since most are contrived and often self-contradictory within themselves. Even the later writings of ID proponents which might incorporate corrections have failed to explain or correct false ideas. As the concluding essay notes, all the ID writings are based on a dogma, to which information is attached. Since this is the reverse of normal scientific procedure, analysis is impaired. Yet, this jury has carefully considered the evidence. Their judgment is valid - ID is not science. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Rating:
Summary: This book does not fail
Review: The concept of reading book reviews to get a picture of what the general reader thinks about a book apparently does not work well for this kind of book. Only the very exceptional reviewer would (while vigorously disagreeing with the conclusions of a book) still give it a high rating because it was interesting, well thought out, well written, etc. Most reviewers of this type book will (because of the subject matter) rate the book based on whether they agree or disagree with the author. That kind of judgement dosen't exist for novels, or is only a minor factor for non-fiction books such as histories or biographies, etc., where reviewers might recognize an interesting book and give it a high rating even though they disagree with the author's conclusions. Arguments about "intelligent designers" and evolution, however, touch people too close to their religious orientation. A fudamentalist Christian would be strongly inclined to give a book like this a low rating even if he recognized it as being well written and interesting. Some might even go out of their way to write a review just in order to give it a low rating, even if they had never read it. It does cut both ways, however, and those who accept evolution (as I do) might be inclined to give a book like this high marks even if it weren't as good as it is.

After confessing that, however, I can say that I think this book most certainly deserves a very high rating. Its purpose is to show that ID is not a viable scientific theory and it does that with incredible clarity. One negative reviewer has said it didn't convince him that life could have arisen without an intelligent designer. But this book is not intended to do that. The origin of life is only mentioned once and even then along with two other significant events in the same sentence. It is brought up as an example of Dembski's improper use of probability theory. That is the poimt that I beleieve most negative reviewers don't recognize. This book deals with what is wrong with the arguments for ID. Let's face it, evolution is the modern paradigm and ID is challenging it. The rcognized leader of the ID movement is Dembski, who makes claims based on probability arguments, and if it is shown that Denbski's arguments are mathematically invalid, the claims for ID go down the drain. The book deals principally with Dembski's arguments but also deals with other ID advocates, including Phillip Johnson, Michael Behe,and Paul Nelson. It would be ridiculous for anyone even pretending to be knowledgeable about ID and the arguments for or against it not to read this book.


Rating:
Summary: EF detected snake's designs on victim!
Review: The explanatory filter has not been falsified.

In any case, no matter how many imaginative 'what if' scenarios Mr. Hurd comes up with, that snake had definite, contingent, complex, specified designs on the victim, regardless of human motives. EF works even for serpentine intelligence. Yet another vindication!

Rating:
Summary: Explanatory Filter survives snakebite!
Review: This book makes for challenging perusal - for the ID-challenged, that is! One essay in particular tries to dispatch (1st degree premeditated) Dembski's Explanatory Filter (EF) and only feebly ends up biting itself with its own fangs.

EF is a basic, rudimentary Level 1 design detector. Strictly ltd. to: if contingent (non-necessitated), complex (not mere aggregation of multiple simples), specified (informed, patterned,tooled not whittled or randomized), then outside the bounds of necessity or chance or combo ALONE to explain. Must be only alternative: Design.

EF does NOT address motive, means, intent, opportunity, reasons, preferences, etc. No why-whodunnit-when-how-where. The EF Owner's Manual does not include these as part of the intended primary purpose or extra-optional features of the device.

The undiscerning critic introduces the 'Snakebite Mystery' as nullifying EF with potential False Positives, inputting 'Death-by-Snakebite' into the 3 nodes as follows: 1)Contingent? Yes> 2)Complex? Yes > 3)Specified(i.e. instrumental, causal culprit)?Yes> By Design! Then there is the sound of Aha! Gotcha! Without further evidence, EF can't distinguish between other valid options than Design: Accident, Provocation, Suicide, Self-Sacrifice, Manslaughter, Crime of Passion, 1st Degree hit by the mafia, etc. Thus it is claimed EF fails if it only spits out the Designed or Intentional as sole possibilities vs. others unintended. EF can't guarantee it happened by Design. All we have is 'Death by Snakebite'(not boa constrictor strangulation).

The problem here (even my 12-yr old spotted it) is that it asks too much of EF and tries to double-filter the raw input. To be fair, EF is a Level 1 single filtration preliminary screening device. Another more sophisticated discriminator would be needed to address the critic's mystery at Level 2 or more. The appropriate input would be 'Corpse in morgue needs autopsy', that is, how'd it get dead? 1)Contingent? Yes > 2)Complex? Yes -non-natural causes per age and health of victim > 3) Specified? Yes - bite puncture wounds, tissue swelling, venom in bloodstream, other characteristic side-effects > By Design (How dead? Snakebite!)

EF has more than satisfied its Level 1 detection parameters as prelim screening device. It's unfair now to wash through again for multiple filtration to try and establish Perry Mason criteria beyond Level 1 capacity,i.e. who put the snake up to it and why: itself, victim, 3rd party(s), etc.? This is tantamount to expecting an air filter to double as a gas filter or emissions PCV (pollution control valve) scrubber!

EF withstands robust scrutiny as Level 1 non-sophisticated screener. A more refined discriminator may need to be devised that is capable of processing EF output such as a DF - Designation Factorer that can sift and sort additional criteria and data to ultimately solve the crime and crack the case at Level 2 and Beyond EF intended purposes.

Caveat for other critics who would be tempted to abuse EF to stall the system: CAUTION - read instructions carefully before operating and observe all safety features to avoid intellectual impairment or EEG embarrassment.

Nice try, but...EF survives snakebite!

Rating:
Summary: Another 5 star rating for a book that deserves it!
Review: Why shouldn't Behe's analogies be pushed? Isn't that the point of critique and review? If Behe's analogy is too weak to be pushed why would he use it in a book that he darn well knows will be looked and critically? I found this book extremely informative and forward. There several in my neighborhood that continuously discuss the evolution vs. creationism argument and this book certainly helps the evolution side. What I find most frustrating is that creationists/ID'ers simply chose to ignore the facts or modify them to suit their needs. This book gives any parent concerned about the intrusion of religion into our science classes something to fight with. It uncovers the lengths at which ID'ers will go to push their agenda. Science is what it is! If a claim in science can be proven wrong then the books are re-written accordingly, the problem that ID'ers have with this book is that it proves them wrong and all one can do is listen to the "don't push it to hard or it will fail" complaint. ID fails all tests of science!

Rating:
Summary: A Critique of this Critique
Review: Wow! 4 consecutive five-star reviews by the same guy under no less than 4 separate pseudonyms! Quite the achievement. Thank you to one of the personas at least who actually attempted to review the book instead of critiquing those who didn't happen to agree. One of the personas set up an artificial parameter limitation: his positive 'review' can be unspecified and noncomplex, while any negative review must be of specified complexity. Ironically, this persona asked Creationists to be Intelligent in their Design of commentary, while antiCreationists only have to be naturally selective and the opposite of Intelligent by design!

The book itself admittedly is well done. No complaint there. Then why the lone star rating, you ask? Because it assumes its points of contention - some valid, some invalid - are under its terms and conditions unanswerable and unassailable. But that is simply far from the case. Only one example from the book will be cited to satisfy the Complex Specified Information requirement of one of the pseudo-personas: Young's refutation of Behe's mousetrap analogy and Dembski's arrow-in-target analogy.

First, they're merely analogies, so they shouldn't be pushed too far, which is what this book does. Second, Young forgets that in changing or reducing the mousetrap to enable minimal function, he is adding intelligent intent and reverse-design to the mechanism which according to his evolutionary theory doesn't happen in natural selection/micro-accretion. So in trying to disable Behe's analogy, Young's analogy also fails. Thirdly, Behe's point is merely that certain minimum features must be present for something to work, whether a flagellum motor or mousetrap. That fact stands, whether someone can try and assault analogies and reduce the minimum number of necessary parts to still qualify as a workable mechanism. Then, claiming mousetraps are blueprinted while living entities are reciped only proves Intelligent Design's point: you can have neither a blueprint for inorganic items nor a recipe for organic ones without CSI and ID. That fundamental issue stands despite Young's quarrel with mousetraps. As for Dembski's arrow-on-target analogy, Young admittedly makes some fine rebuttals in validly pointing counterexamples to the notion of targeting. But again the fact remains as Dembski's main point: there is targeting involved and bulls-eyes are repeatedly hit so often and so accurately as to render ID and CSI most probable as causation versus astronomic infinitesimal iterations by natural randomicity to achieve DNA-level order, complexity, specificity, informational assimilation to achieve uninterrupted individual and collective anti-entropic survivability and reproductivity: quite the achievement apart from some at least apparent intentionality!

In conclusion, all the string of five-star ratings aside, the valid critiques in this book have been answered by proponents of Intelligent Design or are in process. Just wait for Behe's and Dembski's next books. As for the invalid criticisms, they may satisfy the opponents' internal criteria for 'gotcha!', but that doesn't mean they rise to the level of adequately addressing valid ID criticism of prevailing Darwinian beliefs. For upwards of 100 years, non-ID has held the title and increased its lock on the league. Now the ID challenger has arisen to step in the ring as legitimate contender: Round 1. This book and others like it signal Round 2. Coming up next: Round 3. This prizefight is far from over.