Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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13 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not persuasive, 23 Jun 2009
From the start of this book, the authors have a difficult path to tread. On the one hand, they tell us that students at an 'excellent faith-filled Catholic college' are losing their faith after reading The God Delusion. On the other hand, they have to try and persuade us that The God Delusion is shot full of holes.
The introduction is largely devoted to setting the tone and what this involves is an invective directed at Richard Dawkins and other atheists. The authors liken Dawkins to a 'fundamentalist preacher'. Of course, the insult only works if we consider fundamentalist preachers to be themselves worthy of contempt. (Maybe Hahn and Wiker are keeping their fingers crossed that no Protestants will be reading their book? Or are they hoping that fundamentalists will be too dim to notice the implied insult?)
Probability is a topic which human beings find difficult to deal with, and one where our intuition can lead us badly astray. Hahn and Wiker appear to share these popular misunderstandings. Whereas Richard Dawkins rightly tries to clarify the distinction between an event which is 'utterly impossible' and one which is 'highly improbable', Hahn and Wiker seem to be trying to reinstate the confusion. Their treatment of probability was less than illuminating.
They then turn their attention firstly to abiogenesis and then to evolution. Ken Miller (himself a Roman Catholic) has done excellent work in supporting evolution and refuting Intelligent Design. To find Hahn and Wiker reverting to the same mistaken arguments which are put forward by the proponents of ID is rather depressing. In addition, Miller has expressed his concern about his daughters being presented with a false dichotomy - a choice between religion and science. Although Hahn and Wiker say that theists can acknowledge that 'evolution of some kind has occurred' I would argue that the damage (if only to their own credibility) has already been done.
The charge which Hahn and Wiker try to pin on Dawkins is that his prior commitment to atheism has shaped his science. This, of course, is nonsense. Science permits people with all varieties of metaphysical assumptions to work together. When he is discussing evolution, Richard Dawkins is describing scientific facts which are common property to us all.
The authors also advance a 'proof' of the existence of God. This demonstration is called the 'argument from intelligibility' and appears here, evidently, in somewhat abbreviated form. Although this would need to be explored in detail, my initial impressions are that the argument will turn out to be both circular and have, buried within it, a misunderstanding of what laws of nature are. However, I think there is an amusing corollary of their purported proof:
They develop their argument based upon the fact that the universe is intelligible. What this means is that there is a regularity which permits scientists to investigate it and to discover things about it. If this is the case then it completely rules out miracles. If any miracles are permitted, then the universe ceases to be intelligible but descends into inexplicable chaos where literally anything could happen - at any time and for no discernible reason. Having been so critical of Dawkins and his reluctance to embrace miracles in the earlier part of their book, it is ironic that their own 'proof' of the existence of God rules out the possibility of any suspension of the laws of nature - i.e. miracles.
The final chapter starts by asserting that the debate is as much a moral debate as a theoretical one. In coupling these issues so strongly, there is a potential danger. The credibility of any moral arguments they may advance will be seriously undermined by their irrational and mistaken attack on evolution.
The book concludes with a 'thought experiment'. This involves setting up Richard Dawkins as a dictator who imposes his eugenic values upon society. To me, it didn't seem so much a 'thought experiment' as a deranged, paranoid fantasy.
It was the sensationalism, combined with its misplaced attack on evolution and confused arguments which, for me, established it as being a very poor book.
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22 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, 15 Jul 2008
I was eager to read a well-researched, intelligent rebuttal of Dawkins' work, but this book doesn't even attempt it. In it's brief 152 pages the topics range from the ad hominem to the irrelevant, which may be partly due to the fact that neither author is well versed in biology. The tactic of misrepresentation is also prevalent here; quoting Dawkins explaining something he does not support, without supplying the context and thus implying that he was giving his own opinion. This latter technique is particularly distasteful so I can't recommend this book to anyone who wishes to understand both sides of this interesting debate.
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10 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Atheism unmasked: it's just another religion!, 10 April 2009
As an academic with Faith surrounded by atheists, I am always interested in reading rigorous, scholarly responses to what seems to be the atheists' Bible, Dawkins' 'God Delusion'. Hahn and Wiker more than meet this challenge, providing several insightful and thought-provoking rebuttals of Dawkins' arguments, doing so with both style and flair.
Easy to read, this book requires no specialist knowledge or training to understand. The authors' arguments, logic and examples are clearly presented and easy to follow. Moreover, unlike many books on the subject, they use humour to effectively illustrate various points that soundly refute Dawkins' position, logic and scholarship. Yet, despite the lighter tone employed, every one of their assertions is solidly backed up by multiple references to scholarly sources.
Adapting Dawkins' own approach with a spin of Christian charity, Hahn and Wiker's tone is sometimes ironic and 'tongue-in-cheek'. However, absent are the vitriol and venom that pervade Dawkins' work. Instead, they focus exclusively on the argument and the logic, never digressing into the personal or ad hominem so common on the other side. The result is a highly effective, persuasive and entertaining monograph that, once you start, is hard to put down.
One particularly salient point they make is how atheism is, for all intents and purposes, no more than a religion for Dawkins (and, de facto, most of his adherents). They demonstrate, point by point, how Dawkins consistently dismisses or ignores the scientific evidence contrary to his position (ironically, in much the same way that Dawkins and many atheists claim religious persons do). In doing so, they unmask Dawkin's 'new atheism' as merely the latest addition to the world's pantheon of blindly obeyed ideologies and cults (which Dawkins and his followers so haughtily but amusingly disdain).
This book provides significant food for thought to any intellectually honest atheist swayed by Dawkins' work.
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by Scott Hahn
by Thomas Crean
by Benjamin Wiker
