God, the Devil, and Darwin: A Critique of Intelligent Design Theory | 
 enlarge | Author: Niall Shanks
Creator: Richard Dawkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
Buy New: $27.79
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Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 761771
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 296
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.9
ISBN: 0195161998
Dewey Decimal Number: 213
EAN: 9780195161991
ASIN: 0195161998
Publication Date: January 8, 2004
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Product Description
In the last fifteen years a controversial new theory of the origins of biological complexity and the nature of the universe has been fomenting bitter debates in education and science policy across North America, Europe, and Australia. Backed by intellectuals at respectable universities, Intelligent Design theory (ID) proposes an alternative to accepted accounts of evolutionary theory: that life is so complex, and that the universe is so fine-tuned for the appearance of life, that the only plausible explanation is the existence of an intelligent designer. For many ID theorists, the designer is taken to be the god of Christianity. Niall Shanks has written the first accessible introduction to, and critique of, this controversial new intellectual movement. Shanks locates the growth of ID in the last two decades of the twentieth century in the growing influence of the American religious right. But as he shows, its roots go back beyond Aquinas to Ancient Greece. After looking at the historical roots of ID, Shanks takes a hard look at its intellectual underpinnings, discussing modern understandings of thermodynamics, and how self-organizing processes lead to complex physical, chemical, and biological systems. He considers cosmological arguments for ID rooted in so-called "anthropic coincidences" and also tackles new biochemical arguments for ID based on "irreducible biological complexity." Throughout he shows how arguments for ID lack cohesion, rest on errors and unfounded suppositions, and generally are grossly inferior to evolutionary explanations. While ID has been proposed as a scientific alternative to evolutionary biology, Shanks argues that ID is in fact "old creationist wine in new designer label bottles" and moreover is a serious threat to the scientific and democratic values that are our cultural and intellectual inheritance from the Enlightenment.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
 Has it come to this? Let the hair pulling commence... May 10, 2006
16 out of 73 found this review helpful
Here, Shanks has very thoroughly designed nothing more than another self-indulgent attack on Christianity and Intelligent Design. Evolutionary theorists should be as appalled by his emotional and often childish idioms throughout as the ID defenders for whom he shows no respect. I have studied at length the arguments of creation science and watched as theoretical holes and the widening gap between opponents fills with bickering. While I will not make specific recommendations, I will suggest you seek out the few calm objective critiques that are available.
Unscientific argumentation April 28, 2006
16 out of 65 found this review helpful
Why do those professors who front the Intelligent Design debate argue like school-boys either it concerns those pro et contra?
In this book Shanks reveals how naive the conservative ID movement are and how wrong it is for them to deny the naturalistic science that they in fact are dependent on. But that is the best thing to say about the book.
Mr. Shanks shows that he himself is just as fundamentalistic in his blind belief in Darwin as his God and Richard Dawkins as his Messiah, as those conservative Christian he attacks for believing in God and ID. Shanks is very nasty to those who doesn't believe the same as he does. The ID movement and it's folks are described as parasites crawling on the body of science, and he suggest that God must have been drunk or stupid or both when he created the world. This is not good language if you want to build a bridge, but though, this is a well known behaviour of those attacking the ID movement. Richard Dawkins is maybe one of the most respectless to his ID opponents, and he shows his sarcastic hate to Christian also in this book in the preface he has written.
One thing that Shanks criticise the ID movement for doing, is to use bad analogies. Why can't Shanks then try to be better? He tries to prove that ID is wrong by comparing it with the communism. Communism in USSR was intelligent designed and it failed, therefore is ID also a failure. Is this really a professor's way of arguing? He demands exceptional proof from his "enemies" to believe them, but his own proofs for his own concerns are very light. One example is the experiment in the book showing that those people in hospital who are prayed for live longer than those who are not prayed for. Shanks simply doesn't want to believe the results of this scientific experiment and his "argument" to prove this, is that there must have been something wrong with the experiment. What a proof!
Another example of unscientific behaviour of a professor, who through this book tries to show us that he belong to the enlightenment tradition, is that he denies any intelligent design of cosmos because there are no proof good enough for him, and that's OK, but when he is confronted with the fine tuning of all the parameters in the universe, he instead of accepting intelligent design as one possible solution, proposes the highly metaphysic theory that there must exist many parallel universes and therefore one of them must be like ours. He is just as metaphysic as those he criticise for being so, and he chooses his arguments from his own bias.
There are some good points in this book, but for the most it is a disappointment. Why can't anybody rise the ID debate to a scientific level?
I think, in the end, that either those attacking or those promoting ID never can make any proof which the other part can accept. It turns out to be a matter of belief
 Here we go again - preaching to the converted March 8, 2006
24 out of 71 found this review helpful
Richard Dawkins has been the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University for quite a few years now. And he regularly lectures on evolution in the USA.
Yet that same period of time has seen a decline in the number of UK students wanting to study the sciences at university, and a significant rise in various forms of opposition to evolutionist ideas, particularly so-called Intelligent Design.
Whilst I DON'T want to make a direct link between these two facts it does appear that we can learn a lesson here - and one which both Dawkins and Shanks have noticeably failed to grasp:
However good the case for evolution may be, and however flawed the opposing arguments may be, the "war of words" is NOT being won by the defenders of evolution theory.
Hey, guys, wake up and smell the coffee - YOU AREN'T MAKING CONTACT! And this book, written in a manner that is virtually guaranteed to re-inforce every reader's existing viewpoint, be it pro or anti, is nothing but a waste of perfectly good trees.
As in so many other books on the subject, the author depends on allegedly "rational/factual" arguments to make his case. But what he overlooks is a simple fact known to every psychologist - people don't make decisions based on reason, they make them on the basis of "gut instinct", for want of a better expression, then they rationalize their choice later - if necessary.
So, if you already believe what Shanks and Dawkins believe, then you'll believe what's in this book. If you don't, you won't. And like it or hate it, THAT is a genuine "fact".
 Taking the ID movement to task!! January 17, 2006
28 out of 40 found this review helpful
A very concise, succinct overview of this pernicious movement that seeks to undermine the very foundations of science. It's unfortunate that someone of Professor Shanks' stature must take the time to show how flawed the ID theory is. However, it's precisely what we need, when it's clear that the "methodological supernaturalists" or, more accurately, "right wing Christian dominionists" will continue to use stealth in promoting their agenda in the 9th grade biology classroom.
I particularly like his overview of the philosophy of science, and how it relates to the foolhardy claims of Dembski and Behe. The section of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics was also informative. Overall, I thought he was very fair in his appraisal and did not devolve into simple ad hominem attacks of those who promote ID.
It really is a shame that in this modern age we have to waste our time on this garbage. If the ID movement is really serious about proving their case, they should use actual scientific experiments that are repeatable and verifiable over time. Instead, they continue to use stealth tactics, and instill confusion in our young people. This is unconscionable, and further proves that these "Christians" should stop lying about their true motives and own up to what they really believe.
Evolution gone bad November 19, 2005
12 out of 79 found this review helpful
This truly mean-spirited book illustrates the evolution of Darwin's theory into Darwin's dogma.
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