Rating: 
Summary: no science - just bias
Review: This book, along with virtually every other book that tears Creationism apart, is based on the same type of 'faith' that Christians use to support their belief in Creationism, in the sense that it takes a whole lot more faith to believe that life somehow evolved from a bunch of muck and goo than from a God who created it (no evolution involved). Evolutionists, or anyone against Creationism, uses arguments which are even more ridiculous than those which they argue against. Perhaps the evolutionists don't realize this, but science has been wrong much more than it's been right. This book defends it's message simply by saying that the Bible doesn't show any use of currently accepted scientific methods, hypotheses, or 'proofs' that agree with today's findings that languages develop ("evolve") over time. Of course it doesn't!! IF I asked the evolutionists to show a Bible of their faith, evolution, it would not have scientific proof, methods, analyses, etc. to show it's accuracy to our world, either. That's why it's called FAITH! Evolutionists supposed 'proofs' are nothing but sets of bones, dated with an inaccurate method, many times put together in vain, in order to falsely prove their theories so the university they worked for kept funding their research. If evolution did happen, then books like the Bible, which would contain evolution as truth, would now be discarded as myth by the scientific community - just the opposite of today. I look forward to seeing how many negative reviews I get from those who disagree, but are not able to show any different.
Rating: 
Summary: Intelligent review of Intelligent Design
Review: When reading about the evolution/creationism controversy, I take notes on stuff that is both interesting and new. I read a lot in this area, so I usually don't find much in a single book anymore that meets both criteria, but after finishing Pennock, I had fourteen pages of notes! Hence the five-star rating. Pennock's own analogies and his puncturing others' analogies (e.g., Michael Behe's) made difficult concepts easier to understand; but this is still a densely detailed, closely analyzed, college-level review of Intelligent Design Creationism (IDC), so be prepared for an intellectual workout. Chapter 1 reviews the historical development of and differences between a variety of creationist factions: traditional "young-Earth" creationism; more liberal "old-Earth" creationism and its "gap," "day-age," "revelatory day," and "progressive" factions; and distinguishing them from IDC. Pennock distinguishes between internal and external questions about the material world, questions respectively about operational characteristics and history on one hand, and origin, value, and purpose on the other; and argues that science properly deals only with internal questions, not external questions, a distinction some creationists and social Darwinists ignore. Chapter 2 describes how some creationists use the Bible as "proof," a procedure antithetical to conventional science; however, Pennock (jokingly, I think) identifies several "proof texts" supporting evolution. He also examines the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning, comparing them to buckets and flashlights. He says creationists fill buckets with isolated facts, but seldom examine the relationships between the facts they are collecting; while evolutionists collect facts too, but then analyze them to identify relationships that can function as flashlights to illuminate the path ahead and reveal even more facts. Creationist failures to "connect the dots" this way is a recurring theme. Pennock defines evolution, an important exercise, since creationist definitions are often incomplete and misleading, e.g., defining evolution as a purely random process or as being limited to natural selection. He also examines the claim that "survival of the fittest" is a meaningless tautology, comparing it to "May the best team win." Chapter 3 analogizes biological evolution to the evolution of language. Some reviewers didn't like this particular analogy. Having a substantial background in linguistics, I found it interesting. Pennock shows how the English version of The Lord's Prayer evolved over several centuries, compares "designed" Esperanto and natural languages, and discusses Cavalli-Sforza's research comparing human DNA differences to language differences. Pennock examines the misguided creationist complaint that individual dogs don't evolve into cats, and points out that evolution works on populations, not individuals. He shows how Michael Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" made essentially the same blunder of analogizing evolution to individual actions. Behe's Blunder comes up very frequently in creationist literature, so knowing how to rebut it is very useful. The creationist "arrow" analogy is similarly flawed; Pennock's analysis makes that analogy miss its target as well. Pennock's view of the difference between fact and theory was both new and enlightening. Chapter 4 is one of the most helpful chapters I have ever read on creationism, whether IDC, old-Earth, or young-Earth. Creationism relies VERY heavily on a debating trick called "false dichotomy." Pennock exposes the trick and shows how to rebut it. Anyone who wants to understand why creationist arguments can be so wrong and yet sound so right should read this chapter. Chapter 5 discusses some common, hilarious (or pathetic) creationist blunders, such as Henry Morris' mistranslation of "behemoth's tail" (Job 40:15), lunar dust, Paluxy "man-tracks," and population growth rates as young-Earth evidence. Pennock shows that Behe's rebuttal of Gould's "Panda's Thumb" was exactly right, then shows that Behe's rebuttal is just as devastating to IDC itself. He also analyzes the difference between information and intelligence and shows how IDC's confuse the two concepts. He details how Behe's concept of irreducible complexity at the molecular level was refuted - in 1918! The details here are just wonderful. He also questions the power of a concept that has generated exactly ZERO professional research articles. Chapter 6 analyzes the common, creationist error of arguing that naturalist methodology amounts to naturalist philosophy, i.e., atheism. The analogies used to illustrate the error are amusing, memorable, and right on target. His comments about chaos and also the "poor in spirit" made me laugh. Chapter 7 discusses the alleged moral relationships of evolution, atheism, existentialism, absolute truth, etc., especially as used by Phillip Johnson. These are key issues, but I've seen them discussed elsewhere, so I'll just say that Pennock's treatment is as good as the others I've read, more thorough than many, and more specifically focused on IDC. Chapter 8 specifically discusses public school education. Pennock includes a very brief summary of some recent court cases, highlighting their concern over viewpoint discrimination and pointing out how creationists discriminate by demanding special treatment for the Biblical creation myth, while refusing to grant similar status to other creation myths from Greek mythology, American Indian mythology, etc. Some earlier reviewers seem to have missed the point. An Oxford reader decries alleged typos and factual errors, but his review contains three misspellings and a few factual errors itself. "Mathematics has been a thorn in Darwinism's side for decades." Really? R.A. Fisher, one of the giants of 20th century mathematics was also a VERY prominent evolutionist. Regressive analysis, a powerful, mathematical tool was recently invented - by evolutionists. So much for factual errors! A Boca Raton reader asks" Is neo-Darwinism in such trouble that its only defenders are philosophers who don't know much about science?" As Pennock points out, we could ask whether IDC is in such trouble that its primary defender is Phillip Johnson, who openly boasts that he doesn't know much about science! A Charlotte reader says Pennock falsely accuses creationists of "demonizing" evolutionists. But a Pasadena reader blames Darwin for, ". . . Marx to Freud to Lenin to Stalin to Hitler to WW II to moral and cultural relativism. . . ." Gee. No demonizing there, is there! Pennock's book is outstanding. I recommend it highly!
Rating:
Summary: Finding the Creationists' God
Review: _tower of babel, the evidence against the new creationism_
by robert pennock It's a good book, well worth the time to read and study it. What makes it a significant contribution to the creation-evolution-design(CED) debate is first, its polemical character and second, its very well done organization. It is a polemic, philosophic critic of Intelligent Design(ID) with Young Earth Creationism(YEC) always in the background as a secondary target. It is very philosophic, not particularly scientific except as examples, the author is a philosopher of science and a professor. This teaching background shows in the examples and in the quality of the structure. He is writing to be understood by the general audience, he is desirous of convincing people by the strength and coherence of his arguments. He is a subscriber to the KISS principle, that is keep it simple stupid, as simple as necessary to get the point across but not simpler. He also is a textbook example of good transition between chapters and major ideas, with the idea of: tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, tell them what you told them----evident and greatly adds to the discussion and the memorability of the ideas. One quality that i did not appreciate which will detract from the ability to recommend this book to its natural audience---college students from fundamentalist church backgrounds where the 7 day YEC principle is taught as an element of the gospel--is a mild almost nastiness underneath part of the book. I believe it is debate fatigue, from several university examples(adam's rib) he displays the problem that a teacher must have after hearing the same old not-correct rebuttalled arguments coming from each new introductory class. But to allow it to show is bad teaching technique and only will turn off his audience. It is not the first book i would recommend to a person with a desire to enter into the CED debate. It is not a general introduction, it is specific to a straightforward analysis of why ID is not science. As far as i can see he hits all the big issues that i am aware of, and he introduced me to several i was not aware of, and added new spin to several i had thought about. The are several very interesting analogies that he follows throughout the text that are worth mentioning. The first is a little jab at the YEC, in fact it comes from a cartoon, that is the image of the tower of creationism. First with the battles within its walls, and second with the evolution of the principles taught by those on the ramparts of it. The second is the use of the tower of babel as a window into the YEC mindset and hermeneutic, this being a less talked about piece of theology than either Genesis 1-2 (creation) or even the Noachic flood. This culminates in chapter 3, but is rather disappointing in some ways, i think if he was a linguist or even a philosopher of language he could have taken the example to a much more important and persuasive point. For instance, show how pidgin into creole demonstrates a universal grammar, and at the same time this example is counter to the structure of evolutionary thinking in terms of nested hierarchies. I'm surprised he didn't push the example of the tower of babel more in either the theological, philosophic, or scientific directions. (for amazon review readers see the review below entitled "quite a mix" by a linguist for more detail on why the linguistic model was lacking substance) From the top most level the book is a scientists defense of several very important elements in the philosophy of science that the author deems absolutely essential for modern science, and proposes that YEC and its descendent ID directly attack these principles.
The first and biggest fight is over theistic science and its epistemological attack on methodological naturalism. He goes back to this issue time and again throughout the book, it is his take home message. In this way the structure of the book is much like a suburban street, straight with just driveways off of it, you can always see where you are going, the side discussions are short and he gets back to the point quickly. This is a good thing in such a complex discussion where the general not specialized audience is in mind.
The second big point is that YEC and ID are not really about science, they are about morality. Specificially about the slippery slope to unbelief and societal problems. A related issue is the polarization and dichomotomization of the discussion into us and them, YEC and atheistic materialist evolutionary science. He discusses pieces at a time of these problems, done i think in a sympathic way with an eye towards convincing people not alienating them further from science and its underlying philosophy. It is a good contribution to the literature, it achieves it's goals and demonstrates a teacher's heart, desiring that people think about the issues and maybe even by persuaded to believe as he does. I would read P. Johnson's _wedge of truth_ before this however, as the book really is a direct discussion with Johnson over his particular views on ID. You might loose some of the finer points if you are not acquainted with ID at all. Even if you are an old hand in the CED debate, you can find value in the book, not just for the organization but several of the extended examples (Raelians, SETI) are very thoughtfully done and bring up several angles on old issues that i have not seen elsewhere. So i hope this review encourages you to pick up the book, if you just want to skim the book, i would start with chapter 4 "of naturalism and negativity", where he is his best at philosophic discussions, and chapter 6 "deus ex machina" where his criticism of theistic science and defense of methodological naturalism reach a peak.
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