Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A neat "both/and" solution, 6 Jan 2009
I enjoyed this book. Its great merit is that it affirms both great science and great faith. The one can, and does, benefit the other. Alexander takes us back to the idea of the scientist as one who explores the workings of God's universe. This book gets us away from the sterile either/or thinking of the evangelical atheists and the militant creationists.
The book echoes echoes thoughts from Michael Ruse (Can a Darwinian be a Christian?) who from a philosophical background shows that Christian faith and evolutionary biology are compatible, and Francis Collins (The Mind of God) who also has no problem reconciling his biological knowledge and his belief in God.
Alexander is particularly good at showing how DNA changes can generate genetic diversity which is the substrate for evolution. He also shows how natural selection is likely to be a conservative force on most occasions.
Alexander takes evolution back to its original role as a biological theory that explained the formation of new species from existing ones. As such evolution is a powerful theory, with great explanatory power. His account of species formation, and the examples provided are excellent.
Alexander is also good at showing how the idea of evolution has been exteneded to ends far beyond its biological use. The right with its belief in survival of the fittest businesses and individuals, the left with its idea of human perfectibility and inevitable historical progress, the Nazis with their idea of "lives not fit to be lived", the atheist materialist who must deny any idea of design or purpose all use evolution far beyond its intended, or valid, remit.
This book is both an excellent account of evolution, and a demonstration that science and religion can be successfully and effectively pursued together.
The two possible areas of weakness in the book are the section on the origin of life and its summary dismissal of the arguments of intelligent design.
Overall however this is a useful book, and one that allows scientists to get on with studying evolution together whatever their religious differences may be. It helps to build a very powerful bridge across the false divide presented by those who prefer to talk about, "science versus religion."
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24 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very helpful contribution to the debate, 1 Sep 2008
This book is written from the perspective of a Christian geneticist. His writing is informed by his knowledge of this fast moving field.
Like the majority of Christians who are professional scientists, he is willing to be tentative in his conclusions. Believing that there is much we don't yet (and may never) understand about how God chose to create mankind.
He points out the danger of poor theology and poor science creating stumbling blocks. Such stumbling blocks can stop the good news of Christ Jesus being heard, so we should choose our words carefully when we discuss such a hot subject, otherwise we may create more heat than light.
Denis Alexander believes God is the creator, and created in a way consistent with him being the God of truth (as do I). He presents a little of the enormous range of evidence pointing to the age of our planet (as being circa 4.5 Billion years old) and comes at the subject of evolution from "an old earth creationist" position. He goes into considerable depth explaining in lay terms some of the recent discoveries at the genetic level that point to the very close linkage between mankind and the animals. From these he comes to a position of saying that Adam and Eve were Neolithic farmers in the near east who he chose to reveal himself in a special way ("Homo divinus"). In the region of 6,000 - 8,000 years ago.
To quote page 243 of the book he says, "I do not know if model C is correct. But for myself I am happy to use it as a working model, and if a better model comes along I will readily discard C and adopt the new one."
In later chapters he also draws out some of the flaws that he sees in both "ID" (Intelligent Design) and the young earth viewpoints.
I, for one, found it a very helpful book. Denis put into words many of the ideas that I had personally held, but not known how to voice. (And not wanted to unsettle fellow believers by voicing). I therefore give it 4 stars.
I give it 4 stars and not 5, only because at one or two points I feel he is overly harsh in his comments about named Christians who hold different viewpoints to him. Particularly the tone of his comments about John Lennox (page 334) stick in my mind.
The science covered, although written for a layman, could be a hard read for those who disliked science at GCSE. An A level or two, or even a science / engineering degree is needed to get the most from some of his more complex asides.
But overall a very good book, and a good grounding in this important subject.
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44 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Alexander "de-bate", 13 Aug 2008
In honesty, I marked this book down, not becasue it was poorly written or researched, but because I disagreed with so much of the 'naturalistic' emphasis that comes across in the overall story - even though this would be denied.
From the outset, the writer states that all Christians are by defintion 'creationists' - I agree. But I couldn't find much in the book that would differ from "The Blind Watchmaker" and a host of other similar books - albeit that DA believes that God brought the universe into existence and sustains it. Everything else differs little from 'almost' deistic beliefs (even though this too would be denied). I'm itching to know "What exactly did God do then?" Not an unreasonable question (to which I searched in vain for a coherent theistic answer), bearing in mind that biblically He raised people from the dead - which can have no naturalistic/scientific explanation!
DA doesn't deny miracles (even though the scientific community generally does) and is cautious to point out that the Genesis account does not indicate that miracles actually occured. This is quite true, but it's almost illogical. If He is capable of miracles at all (and He is) I would expect God to have acted miraculously in the Created order at certain key stages, perhaps in his direct creation of information to produce man (without common ancestry), thereby demonstrating His power, so that we are without excuse in providing fully naturalistic Just-So stories that exclude any acknowledgement of His Being.
In the Postscript, DA implies that scientists "investigate and seek to understand the works of God." That may be true of some, but not the majority, that are either atheistic or agnostic. They do what they do because they love the science and get paid for it.
As pointed out by ID theorists, such scientists are also committed to the reigning philosophical paradigm of naturalism. Awkward 'design' evidence is simply malleable enough to fit the a priori naturalistic conclusions (i.e. there can be no Divine Foot in the Door) - even if the evidence is crying out to the contrary.
DA is very critical of ID in the book, even though the motive for it is not to 'close down' scientific discovery, but point towards actions of 'intelligent agency' - which is surely what a creationist would predict to be the case....
I'm not a 'head in the sand' Creationist who believes in the God-of-the-Gaps. Far from it. Scientists need to be free to investigate everything as if the full workings of any material or biological scenario etc.., can be established in a fully plausible way - but where there does appear to be evidence for very specific design (say, in the genetic code), this should also be freely debated openly, rather than hear yet more story-telling in popular science literature!
Part of the difficulty of being a Christian within our world, is admitting, without embarrasment or shame, that we believe things, such as miraculous stories in the New Testament, that have no scientific explanation - and we should be content to accept that this is so and give God the glory for it.
This is a book that I would still recommend to all Christians to read, for the simple reason that within it there is a challenge to get to grips with the science (and theology) that is covered - and applauded by highly respected people such as Dr Francis Collins and Professor J I Packer. It can then be discussed further, particularly within a Christian context.
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